The Form Asks for an Affiliate Link. Make Sure Yours Redirects to You.
Written by Submitator. Insidr.ai is one of the directories we file customers to, so read it as an interested party. The link behaviour below was measured by following their redirects rather than inferred from the markup, and the footnote says exactly what was read.
Insidr.ai is an AI tools directory rated 47 by Ahrefs, the strongest of the AI directories we have measured this week, sitting on a WordPress site with 196 posts and 41 category pages behind it. Submitting is free, takes four fields and needs no account.
One of those four fields is unlike anything else in this catalog. Where every other form asks for your website, this one asks for "Link to the AI tool (Please put link to affiliate signup if possible)". That is the whole business model, stated on the form rather than discovered afterwards, and it shapes everything about what a listing is worth.
Listings point at insidr.ai/aff/yourtool, an internal path that 301s to whatever link you gave them. We measured 765 of those anchors across twenty category pages: 762 are followed, the /aff/ path is not disallowed anywhere in their robots.txt, and all ten paths we followed returned a permanent redirect rather than a dead end.
So there is a crawlable route. Whether it reaches you is the part you control, and it is decided entirely by what you type into that one field.
A 301 through an unblocked path is a real route, so the only question left is where it lands. An affiliate link that resolves to yourdomain.com/?ref=something ends on your site. An affiliate link that resolves to affiliates.yourvendor.com/insidrai ends on somebody else's, and the listing does nothing for you at all. Most programmes can issue either kind. Ask for the first.
| Path | Where it lands | Your domain? |
|---|---|---|
| /aff/coinrule | coinrule.com/?fp_ref=lasse95 | Yes |
| /aff/3commas | 3commas.io/?utm_source=referral&c=tc1506187 | Yes |
| /aff/danteai | dante-ai.com/?via=insidrai | Yes |
| /aff/finalscout | finalscout.com/?via=lasse | Yes |
| /aff/camp | camp.lemonsqueezy.com?aff=1W4VR | No, ends elsewhere |
| /aff/vwo | affiliates.vwo.com/insidrai | No, ends elsewhere |
Insidr.ai at a glance
| What you get | Insidr.ai |
|---|---|
| Price to submit | $0, no paid tier at submission |
| What they ask for instead | Your affiliate signup link |
| The link | Followed on 762 of 765 anchors |
| The path | insidr.ai/aff/, 301, not robots-blocked |
| Where it lands | Wherever your affiliate link points |
| Domain Rating | 47 (Ahrefs) |
| A page of your own | No, a row on a category page |
| Badge on your site | Not required |
| Catalogue | 41 category pages, 196 posts behind them |
| Filed for you by Submitator | Free listing, plus 29 more directories from $29 |
Per insidr.ai, its /submit-tools/ page, /ai-tools/, robots.txt and sitemaps, all read on 17 September 2026. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' figure via submitator.com/domain-rating-checker, which returned 47. The site runs WordPress with All in One SEO; its sitemap index lists post, page, product and taxonomy children. The post sitemap holds 196 URLs and the page sitemap 67, of which 41 are category pages under /ai-tools/; the product sitemap holds a single entry, which is a digital product they sell rather than a directory listing, and there is no per-tool URL anywhere in any sitemap. The link finding is a sample of pages and a census of anchors within them: 20 of the 41 category pages, made up of the first 6 in sitemap order plus a seeded random 14, each fetched successfully. Anchors were located by regex on the anchor element rather than by an HTML parser, and a first pass that filtered external hosts alone found no tool links at all, because every listing anchor points at an internal /aff/ path; the filter was widened to internal paths before anything was concluded. Across those 20 pages, 765 anchors point at /aff/: 647 carry no rel attribute, 115 carry noopener, 2 carry nofollow and 1 carries noopener noreferrer, so 762 of 765 are followed, and 160 distinct /aff/ slugs appear. Their robots.txt disallows only /wp-content/uploads/wc-logs/, /wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_transient_files/, /wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/, add-to-cart query parameters and /wp-admin/ apart from admin-ajax.php, so /aff/ is not blocked to any crawler. Ten /aff/ paths were then requested with redirects disabled and all ten returned HTTP 301; the destinations quoted are the Location headers verbatim. Eight of the ten landed on the tool's own domain with a tracking parameter appended and two did not, landing on camp.lemonsqueezy.com and affiliates.vwo.com respectively. Nothing here is a claim about how Google treats any particular redirect chain, only about what the chain is: a 301, through a path nobody has blocked, to whatever address the submitter supplied. Google's own guidance is that affiliate links should carry a sponsored or nofollow attribute and these largely do not, which is stated as an observation about the current markup rather than a prediction about anything. Form fields and their prompts are quoted from the live form: "In short, please share what the AI tool can do", "Link to the AI tool (Please put link to affiliate signup if possible)", "Tool category", and the note "Submit new AI tools that we should include. If approved, we will add it to our AI Tools directory." No review window, queue position or acceptance rate is published, nothing was submitted in the course of this review, and no affiliate relationship exists between Submitator and Insidr.ai, so their review time, acceptance rate and commercial terms are outside what we can report. Submitator files customers to Insidr.ai. Our plans are $29 for 30 directories, $49 for 60 and $79 for 100, one-time, chosen by you with each Domain Rating shown and no-equity marked where it applies, badges installed and kept live, rejections credited back as +1 directory and a 30-day refund policy on the conditions in our terms.
How to submit to Insidr.ai, step by step
- 1
Get an affiliate link that points at your own domain
This is the whole preparation and it is worth an email to whoever runs your programme. Most affiliate tools can issue either a link on your domain, like yourdomain.com/?via=partner, or one on the network's host, like affiliates.yourvendor.com/partner. Ask for the first. Of the ten redirects we followed, eight landed on the tool's own site and two landed somewhere else entirely, and that difference is the difference between a listing worth having and a listing worth nothing to you.
- 2
Paste it into the link field, not your homepage
The field says "Please put link to affiliate signup if possible", and it is the address they will 301 to. If you do not run an affiliate programme, put your plain canonical homepage in instead; the field says if possible for a reason and a directory would rather list a good tool than not list it. What you should not do is give a link you have not followed yourself.
- 3
Follow your own link before you submit it
Open the affiliate URL in a private window and watch where it ends up. You are checking two things: that it lands on your domain rather than a network host, and that the parameter it carries does not break your canonical tag. Thirty seconds now saves a listing that quietly points at somebody else's site.
- 4
Write the description as a sentence, not a paragraph
Their prompt is "In short, please share what the AI tool can do". The listings that result are single rows in a comparison table on a category page, so anything longer than a sentence will be cut by whoever writes the row. Give them the sentence you want to appear, and give it in their words rather than yours.
- 5
Name a category that already exists
There are 41 category pages, from AI voice generators to crypto trading bots to custom GPTs. Look at the list first and name one of theirs rather than inventing a label. A submission that does not fit an existing page is a submission with nowhere to go, and nobody builds a new category page for one entry.
- 6
Expect a row, not a page
There is no per-tool URL on this site. Your listing lives on a category page alongside the others, so there is nothing to share on launch day and nothing that will rank for your product name. Judge the submission on the link and the category traffic, and do not plan a campaign around a page that will not exist.
An affiliate path that is not a dead end
Cloaked affiliate paths usually end a conversation about link value, because most of them are built to stop exactly that. We have measured two directories this year whose listings route through an internal path their own robots.txt disallows, which means no crawlable route to the customer exists at all, and the catalog cards for both carry a no-equity mark because of it.
This one is built differently, and it is worth saying so. /aff/ appears nowhere in their robots.txt, which blocks only WooCommerce upload directories, add-to-cart parameters and the admin area. The anchors are not marked nofollow or sponsored: across 765 of them we found two nofollows in total. And the hop is a 301 rather than a 302 or a JavaScript bounce, on all ten we tested.
We are not going to tell you what Google does with any particular chain, because nobody outside Google can. What we can tell you is what the chain is, which is more than you can normally find out, and that the one variable in it is yours.
Two of ten landed somewhere else
The table above is the reason this page exists. Eight of the ten redirects we followed ended on the tool's own domain with a tracking parameter attached, which is the outcome you want. Two did not. /aff/camp ends on a Lemon Squeezy checkout host. /aff/vwo ends on affiliates.vwo.com.
In neither case is anybody at fault. Those are simply the links those companies handed out, and for the purpose an affiliate link is normally used for they work perfectly. For this purpose they do not, because the chain terminates on a domain that is not theirs. If you submit a link like that here, you have given a directory a listing and taken nothing back.
Which is a specific, checkable thing you can fix in one email to your affiliate provider, and it is the single most useful sentence on this page.
You do not get a page
Their sitemaps are unambiguous about this: 196 posts, 67 pages of which 41 are the AI Tools categories, one product which is something they sell, and no per-tool URL anywhere. Your listing is a row on /ai-tools/whatever-your-category-is/.
For a founder that changes what the submission is for rather than whether to make it. There is no page to share on launch day, nothing that ranks for your product name, and nothing to send a customer to. What there is instead is a followed link from a DR 47 domain with a real publishing history behind it, and placement on a category page that people arrive at through the category rather than through you.
Insidr.ai review: the short answer
Free, four fields, DR 47, and a crawlable 301 rather than the dead end a cloaked affiliate path usually is. Get an affiliate link that redirects to your own domain before you fill the form in, and expect a row on a category page rather than a page of your own.
Insidr.ai is free. Thirty directories are $29, each one measured.
One payment, every directory named in your dashboard with its Domain Rating on the card, a no-equity mark where the link cannot be crawled, badges installed and kept live where one is wanted, and a rejection credited back as another directory of your choice.
A 301 that lands wherever you point it.
A DR 47 AI directory whose form asks for your affiliate signup link. Listings route through insidr.ai/aff/ on a 301 that nothing in robots.txt blocks, and 762 of the 765 anchors we measured are followed. Eight of ten redirects landed on the tool's own domain and two landed on an affiliate network instead, so submit a link that resolves to you. There is no per-tool page: you get a row on one of 41 category pages. The whole catalog.
FAQ
Is an Insidr.ai link dofollow?
Almost always, yes. We read 20 of their 41 category pages and measured 765 anchors pointing at their /aff/ path: 647 carry no rel attribute, 115 carry noopener, 2 carry nofollow and 1 carries noopener noreferrer. So 762 of 765 are followed. The /aff/ path is not disallowed anywhere in their robots.txt, and every one of the ten we tested returns a 301, which is a permanent redirect rather than a dead end.
Why does Insidr.ai link through /aff/ instead of to my site?
Because their business model is affiliate revenue and the submission form says so outright. The link field reads “Link to the AI tool (Please put link to affiliate signup if possible)”. So the listing points at insidr.ai/aff/yourtool, which 301s to whatever affiliate URL you gave them. Unusually for a cloaked affiliate path, it is crawlable and the anchors are not marked nofollow or sponsored.
Does the /aff/ redirect still pass link value?
It can, and that depends entirely on you rather than on them. A 301 through a path nobody has blocked is a crawlable route, so the question becomes where it lands. If your affiliate link resolves to your own domain with a tracking parameter, as most of the ones we followed do, then the destination is your site. If it resolves to an affiliate network's own host, the chain ends on somebody else's domain and nothing reaches yours.
What affiliate link should I submit to Insidr.ai?
One that redirects to your domain. Of the ten redirects we followed, most landed on the tool's own site with a parameter attached, like coinrule.com/?fp_ref=lasse95 or dante-ai.com/?via=insidrai. Two did not: one landed on a Lemon Squeezy checkout host and another on affiliates.vwo.com. If your programme issues network-hosted links, ask for a link that points at your own domain instead, because that single choice decides whether the listing is worth anything to you.
Do I get my own page on Insidr.ai?
No, and this is the structural thing to know before you submit. Their sitemaps carry 196 posts and 67 pages, of which 41 are the AI Tools category pages, and there is no per-tool URL at all. A listing is a row on a category page such as /ai-tools/ai-voice-generator/, so there is nothing to share, nothing that ranks for your product name, and nothing you can point a customer at.
What is Insidr.ai's Domain Rating?
47, per Ahrefs, which is the strongest of the AI directories we have measured this week. The site is a WordPress build running All in One SEO, with a real publishing history behind the directory: 196 posts including a long run of individual tool reviews.
What does the Insidr.ai submission form ask for?
Four things and no account: a short description with the prompt “In short, please share what the AI tool can do”, the link field asking for an affiliate signup URL, a tool category, and your email. Their note above the form is “Submit new AI tools that we should include. If approved, we will add it to our AI Tools directory.”
Is Insidr.ai free to submit to?
Yes. There is no paid tier at the point of submission, no badge requirement and no queue to buy past. What they ask for instead of money is the affiliate relationship, which is stated on the form rather than buried, and you can submit a plain URL if you do not run an affiliate programme.
How long does Insidr.ai take to review a submission?
They do not publish a window. The form says only that approved tools are added to the directory, with no turnaround, no queue position and no status page. Nothing was submitted in the course of this review, so their review time and acceptance rate are outside what we can report.
Does Submitator submit to Insidr.ai?
Yes, it is in our catalog with its Domain Rating on the card and the link measured rather than assumed. It is one of the entries where what you send matters more than usual, because the link field decides where the redirect lands, and a rejection comes back as a credit for another directory of your choice.
More submit-to guides.
Insidr.ai is free. Thirty directories are $29, each one measured.
One payment, each directory named with its Domain Rating on the card before you choose it, a no-equity mark where the link cannot be crawled, badges installed and kept live where one is wanted, and a rejection swapped for another directory.