Google's own spam policy has a list of link spam examples. Fourth on that list, word for word: "Low-quality directory or bookmark site links."
That one line kills the reason most indie developers submit to app directories. The plan usually goes like this. Ship the app, find a list of 100 directories, paste the same tagline into all of them, and wait for the backlinks to lift the domain.
Google's definition of link spam is "the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings." A directory you joined only for the link is that, by definition.
So are directories dead? No. The job they do has changed, and most submissions are still aimed at the old job.
What the documentation actually says
Three things from Google Search Central are worth knowing before you fill in another submission form.
Directory links are named as a spam pattern. The spam policies page lists low-quality directory links next to buying links, excessive link exchanges, and "using automated programs or services to create links to your site." Blast submission tools sit in that last bucket.
User-submitted links are usually qualified. Google's guidance on outbound links recommends marking user-generated content links with rel="ugc", and says links marked that way "will generally not be followed." A directory that takes public submissions is exactly the kind of site that should be using it. Check the source of a listing before you assume it passes anything.
Indexing is not a promise. Google's How Search Works doc says it plainly: "Google doesn't guarantee that it will crawl, index, or serve your page." Pages are discovered by following links from known pages and through sitemaps, and the same doc lists low-quality content and duplicate pages among the reasons a page is processed but never indexed.
Put those together. The link from a random directory is likely discounted or qualified, and the listing page itself may never be indexed if it carries the same copy as forty other listings.
What survives is the part people skip: a listing is a page that a person reads, on a site where people go to find software.
5 rules for app directory SEO that still hold
1. Submit for the reader, not the link
Ask one question before any submission. Would someone looking for an app like yours actually browse this site? If the only visitors are other developers dropping their own links, the listing does nothing for you and the link may do less than nothing.
A good directory is one where the traffic is people trying to find software, not people trying to be found.
2. Prefer directories with a gate
The cheapest signal that a directory is not a link farm is that something stands between your form and a live listing. A human review. A requirement that the app actually works. A category it has to fit.
A gate cuts both ways. It means your listing takes a few days. It also means every other listing next to yours passed the same check, so the page reads as a curated set rather than a dump. That matters to human visitors, and it is exactly the property a search system is trying to detect.
3. Write a different listing for every directory
Forty identical taglines are forty near-duplicate pages. Google clusters duplicates and picks one canonical, and the rest are candidates for never being indexed at all.
You do not need forty essays. You need the first sentence to change with the audience. A dev tools directory gets the technical hook. A general software directory gets the outcome. Keep a short file of three or four variants and rotate them.
4. Put the try path in the first line
People browsing a directory decide in seconds. The question in their head is not "what does it do" but "can I try it right now without talking to anyone."
Say it up front: free, free trial, or freemium. If a visitor has to click through to your pricing page to learn whether they can even start, most will not.
5. Measure try-clicks, not backlinks
Tag every directory URL with its own UTM parameters so your analytics can tell you which listing produced a signup. After a month you will know which three directories are worth maintaining and which thirty you can forget.
Backlink counts from a directory sweep tell you nothing about whether anyone arrived. A single listing that sends five people who try the app beats a hundred that send none.
Where this is heading
The reader of a directory is changing. Search engines were already discounting directory links. Now the systems that answer "what is a good free tool for X" are models and agents that retrieve pages, read them, and summarise. They do not care about link equity. They care about whether a page states clearly what the app is, who it is for, and how to try it, and whether the site it sits on is the kind of place that checks.
That flips the directory's job. It stops being a source of ranking juice and becomes a trust filter: a small set of curated, human-checked listings that a person or a model can read and act on. The developers who win discovery over the next few years are the ones who treat every listing like a small product page on a site that deserves it.
The practical move today is small. Pick five directories that pass rule 1 and rule 2, write five different listings, tag the links, and check the numbers in thirty days. That is an afternoon, and it beats a hundred-directory sweep.
Where I list apps
This is the reason I built TryMy.App. It is a free directory for apps people can actually try: every listing is free, has a free trial, or is freemium, so the try path is the whole point of the page. A human checks that each app is real, that the URL works, and that it is not a scam before it goes live. Paid-only apps, dead links and anything that is not yours do not get in.
Submitting takes about two minutes: the URL, a tagline, two or three sentences of description, and how people can try it. Free listings are the default and do not expire.
If you shipped something this year that people can try without a sales call, submit it there. Then go apply rule 5 and see whether it sends anyone.
I hang out with a big crowd of builders shipping things like this every week in the Vibe Coding is Life group. Come show what you are launching: facebook.com/groups/vibecodinglife.
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