I manually submitted a client's SaaS to 100+ directories over the last month. Here's what happened.

A bit of context: the site started at DR 0, basically invisible to Google. The founder had spent weeks trying to get backlinks through cold outreach with almost no response.

We took a different approach and manually submitted to 100+ high-authority directories (Product Hunt, G2, Crunchbase, Hacker News, IndieHackers, and a bunch of niche AI/SaaS directories) over 2 weeks, at a natural pace of 7-10 in 24 hours.

M'Blowing Results after a month:
- Domain Rating went from 10 to 35
- 957 backlinks, 71% dofollow
- Started showing up in Google AI Overviews for a few long-tail queries

A few things I learned that might help others:

1. The DR of the directory matters way more than the quantity. 20 submissions to DR 80+ platforms beat 200 submissions to random directories.
2. Niche directories (AI tool aggregators, indie maker lists) pass surprisingly relevant link equity even at lower DR, because Google weighs topical relevance.
3. The platforms that move DR are increasingly the same ones LLMs scrape for software recommendations, so there's a dual benefit now that didn't exist a couple years ago.
4. Submitting too fast (more than ~10/24hr) looks unnatural. Spacing it out over 2 weeks mattered more than I expected.

Has Anyone's tried this? Always interested to hear what's worked (or flopped) for other founders.