This Is How I Got My App from 0 to 28 DR in Just 30 Days
In just 30 days we managed to jump LaunchPanda's DR to 28, all without spending a penny on featured spots. Here is how we did it.
Most founders are in the game because they love building, not distribution. But distribution is the part you have to master, because a product nobody sees is a product nobody uses. Your website's domain rating is one important step in getting your tool out there.
We got ours to 28 DR in 30 days, starting around April 2026, and it has climbed higher since. Here's the proof:
How we improved our Domain Rating
LaunchPanda's core strategy to improve its DR was one thing: startup directory submissions. It may sound boring, and many founders overlook it, but directories are a great place to get a valuable backlink for free.
For those that don't know, directories are websites that list and categorize products, tools, or startups so people can discover them. You submit your product, and once it's approved you get a public listing with a link back to your site. Examples of popular ones are Product Hunt, Uneed, Peerlist, and many more.
We submitted our tool to around 45 directories and got to DR 28 in just 30 days. It only kept growing afterwards. The picture below shows the Domain Rating growth as of July 22, 2026.
Want to copy this strategy? Start with our list of the 10 best free backlink directories, all free to submit and easy to knock out in an afternoon.
Why directory submissions work
Many founders launch their tools on directories, and Google sees these sites as credible places where products get listed and ranked. Every directory that links back to you counts as a vote of confidence in your site.
The more of these votes you collect, the more Google trusts that your product is legit. That trust is what pushes your Domain Rating up, and a higher Domain Rating makes it easier for every page on your site to rank.
The "directories are dead" debate
My experience on X is that a lot of builders love to argue about directory launches. One side says "directories don't bring real users," and they are not completely wrong. A few directories are popular enough to send real traffic, but many don't have much of an audience at all.
That doesn't make them useless. For most directories the power is in the backlink and the SEO juice, not the visitors. And then there are directories with a different kind of value entirely, like the ones that track and rank products by real data.
How LaunchPanda fits in
This is exactly why we built our roadmap on LaunchPanda. We start you off with directories tailored around getting feedback, then move to the best and easiest ones to launch on, and finish with the big-traffic names everyone knows in the directory scene.
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