Are directory submissions still worth it in 2026?
Directory submission lists are everywhere and it is unclear whether they are useful or a relic.
Not for the link equity
Most pass little or none. On this site only 61% of linking domains pass equity at all, and only 17% of individual backlinks do. If you are doing this for authority you will be disappointed.
For entity registration
Being listed consistently, with the same name and URL, across many independent places is how a search engine becomes confident that you are a specific thing that exists. That confidence is what makes your brand query resolve to you.
Do it once and stop
A weekend, a consistent name, and then never again. The returns are entirely front-loaded and the ongoing versions of this are a treadmill.
What 122 linking sites were actually made of
A mix, and the mix is instructive. The links that mattered came from people who found a tool useful and mentioned it. Directory and aggregator links were easy to get, arrived in bulk, and moved nothing measurable. They are not harmful in small numbers. They are simply not the thing that works, and they are seductive because they are the only part of link building that feels like progress.
The test before you submit
Would a real person ever visit this directory to find something? If yes, submit, it may send actual traffic. If it exists solely so that sites can list themselves, you are adding a link nobody will follow to a page nobody will read, and you have spent an afternoon. Spend the afternoon on the thing worth citing instead.
Measured, not asserted
122 linking sites producing ~1,300 backlinks: about ten links per site, which is what a directory network looks like rather than what earned links look like.
Free tool for this: Internal Link Graph. No account, nothing uploaded.
Where this goes deeper
Every number on this page comes from one complete dataset: one product taken from zero to 100K+ users on search alone, with nothing spent on advertising. The full argument is Chapter 25 of the book. Five chapters are free to read.