Backlinks still decide who ranks, but most founders have no realistic way to build them.

Search engines still treat backlinks as one of the strongest signals of whether a site deserves to rank. A new domain with no links has almost no authority, which means even great content sits invisible on page five. Until you build some link equity, SEO simply does not work for you.

The problem is that the standard advice for getting links is brutal for a solo founder. Guest posting, digital PR, and outreach campaigns take weeks of relationship-building and a hit rate measured in low single digits. Most founders try it once, get ignored by a hundred editors, and abandon link building entirely.

Founders either pay an agency several hundred dollars a month for a handful of links of uncertain quality, or they buy a sketchy bulk-backlink package that risks a penalty. The ones who try to do it themselves usually buy a random list of directories from a forum post, submit to a few, lose track, and never find out whether any of it moved the needle.

Distro maintains 450+ curated directories across 15 business categories, so the moment it knows what you do it hands you the 150+ directories that are actually relevant to your business type, not a generic dump. Submitting is built into your daily missions as a few quick entries at a time, so the whole list gets worked through steadily without ever feeling like a chore.

Crucially, Distro then shows you whether it is working. The Domain Rating Tracker pulls your Ahrefs DR weekly and charts referring domains, total backlinks, and dofollow links over a 12-week trend, so you can watch your authority climb as the submissions land. No outreach, no agency, just consistent submissions and a clear feedback loop.