A free directory for independent online stores is being planned, with launch described as coming soon. The creator is inviting merchants to submit their store details and category for an initial listing; several commenters expressed interest, including a cat-toy shop and an Australian seller of two-way radios and ham-radio equipment.
The main feedback is that a backlink alone is unlikely to provide much SEO benefit unless the directory earns traffic and ranks well. To be useful, it should help shoppers discover relevant stores through categories and filters—potentially by product type, niche, or location—and avoid becoming an uncurated list of links. Reviews, verified listings, and click or referral analytics were also suggested.
One commenter recommended piloting with 15–20 stores in a single category, then tracking visits and outbound clicks before adding features. The creator agreed to consider suggestions, including letting shops feature their own best-selling products; they clarified the directory will not have access to merchants’ sales data. Another unresolved practical issue is how listings will be kept current, with owner-claimed and editable pages proposed. The directory remains in planning, with no launch date or final feature set confirmed.
I’m putting together a free directory of independent online stores, kind of like a showcase where small shops get their own page with a short description and a link back to their site. It costs nothing, and a link from another site can help a little with search visibility.
Before I build it out, I’d love your honest input:
Would you want your store listed?
What would make a directory actually useful to you, besides the link?
What do you wish more places did to help small stores get found?
If you’d like to be one of the first listed, comment with your store name and what you sell, or message me.
A directory could be really useful if it focuses on relevant stores and real discovery, not just backlinks. Features like category filters, product discovery, and store reviews would make it even more valuable for small businesses.
Honestly the backlink alone won’t do much. Directory links barely help SEO these days.
What would make it worth it is real shoppers browsing it. Good categories, some curation so it doesn’t turn into a link farm, and click stats for store owners would make people actually care about being listed.
Ivory, the useful part for a merchant would be shoppers who are actually looking for what they sell, plus a way to see whether the listing helped. I’d test that before building many features: start with 15–20 stores in one product category, write clear descriptions, and share that small collection where shoppers already look for those products. For the first month, track directory visits and outbound clicks to each store; tag the links so merchants can see the referral traffic on their side too. Then ask whether those visits led to inquiries or orders.
If shoppers visit but rarely click through, improve the listings and matching. If few shoppers arrive at all, focus on distribution before adding filters or reviews. That would give you a stronger answer than store sign-ups alone.
Hey @Kasa. Honest answer: a link from a brand new directory does very little for search visibility unless that directory actually ranks and gets traffic. What would make it useful is real filtering by category and country, verified listings so it doesn’t fill up with junk, and pages that stay indexed. Check whether links are follow or nofollow before promising SEO value. The rest is a judgement call on Google’s side, not something I can confirm. If it helped, mark it as the solution.
Free is the right call to seed the first listings. One thing that catches most new directory owners later: the data decays. Stores change products and URLs, and a good chunk close within a year, so the manual upkeep grows with every listing you add. The usual fix is letting owners claim and update their own page - it cuts your maintenance and gives them a reason to come back. Worth building that in early rather than retrofitting it.
How are you planning to keep listings current as stores change or shut down - will owners be able to claim and edit their own pages?
I have a small Shopify store selling cat toys. My store has over 150 products. I recently did some number crunching with SideKick and realized that just 3 of my products resulted in a huge proportion of sales. It might be interesting to know the most popular products sold by stores listed in your project
For sure would add that’s to the build thanks a lot for the feedback
Thanks for the interest! One thing to be upfront about: we don’t have sales data from any store, so I can’t show which products sell most. What we can do is let each store feature its own best sellers on its listing, so visitors see what you’d pick yourself. Sounds like those 3 products would be a good fit for that.
Listing is free. If you send me your store link, I’ll add you and set it up with your top 3 featured. Is that something you’d want?
G’day Ivory, My name is Amy & our husband and wife small company is G & C Communications Pty Ltd. We sell two-way radios and Ham radio gear and antennas. www.gccomm.com.au
Hi there @Kasa
This may be especially useful to the smaller stores trying to get the most store traffic without spending all the money on ads. For circumstances other than backlinks, I would suggest organizing stores by item type, location and niche so that customers can easily find relevant businesses to them. Customer reviews and collections may help build trust the same way. I would put my seal of approval on keepng one’s listings refreshed, analytics that indicate an active person is the main goal of the directory as opposed to just a store owner. This can bring more value to all.