The SEO decisions behind IndieTide

Every product page links to the maker’s website. Before and during the launch week the link carries rel="nofollow". From the Monday after, it is a normal followed link, and stays one for as long as the product is listed. The switch happens on its own.

The delay exists for moderation. A first launch goes live as soon as it’s submitted, so the launch week is when spam gets caught. A board that hands out followed links the moment a form is submitted becomes a target for people who only want the link, and Google’s guidance is that links a site can’t vouch for should be qualified (Google’s documentation). After a week on the board in public, a listing has been looked at.

You can confirm any of this yourself. Run a product page through the backlink checker, or follow the steps in how to check that a directory really links to you.

Many launch directories follow your link only while their badge is on your site. IndieTide worked that way at first and stopped after Ahrefs’ DR4 update. A link given in return for a link is a link exchange, and Google’s spam policies list excessive link exchanges as link spam (source). A link from a site built on those exchanges is also worth less to the maker receiving it.

There is still a badge. It shows visitors where you launched and links to your product page. It has no effect on your ranking or on the link to your site. The longer explanation is in badge-for-backlink deals explained.

Each product gets its own page with its name, description, images, maker and link, and that page stays up after the launch week. A website can be listed once; subdomains of the same site count as the same site. That keeps the board from filling with near-identical pages for one product.

Descriptions have a minimum length of 300 characters. A page with one line of text gives a search engine nothing to index and a visitor nothing to read, so the form asks for enough to describe what the product does.

Product pages carry SoftwareApplication structured data and breadcrumbs. If you want the same on your own site, see structured data for a software product.

Category, technology, weekly and alternatives pages are generated from the products on the board. A category with one product in it is not a useful page. Any listing page with fewer than 3 products is marked noindex, and the same rule decides what goes in the sitemap, so the two never disagree.

Google’s spam policies describe pages produced at scale without adding value as scaled content abuse (source). A directory with thousands of empty category pages is exactly that, and it drags down the pages that are worth indexing. The same thinking applies to your own site: alternatives and comparison pages without thin content.

The only paid placement is the sponsor card in the margin of the board and of product pages. It is labelled as a sponsor and its link is marked rel="sponsored", which is what Google asks for on paid links (source). It has no effect on rankings or on any launch’s link.

Followed links are not for sale. Selling them is what the spam policies describe as buying and selling links, and it would put the makers who bought them at risk along with the board.

These decisions are easy to check from outside, on this site or any other:

1. What is the rel attribute on a live listing, and does it change over time?
2. Does the link depend on a badge, a payment or a vote count?
3. Is the listing its own page, and is that page indexable?
4. Are empty category pages indexed?
5. Are paid placements labelled and marked sponsored?

Which launch directories are still worth it after DR4 goes through each of these in detail.