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Six weeks of solo-founder SEO — the real numbers

October 2, 2026

Six weeks, $73 on three directory listings and about 130 articles took nixm.ai from roughly zero to Domain Rating 4.7 and from 822 to 4,553 weekly Google impressions. The biggest lesson was not about links: question-shaped privacy pages were indexed within about a day with no outside links, while 22 thin video pages were never crawled. What backfired was social: batch replies on X earned a spam label, and new accounts on HN and Reddit were restricted.

I am building nixm alone: AI video with sound, paid per clip, and a private AI chat. There is no marketing budget. Since mid-August I have been doing SEO the slow way, writing articles and listing in directories. Here is everything, including the parts that did not work.

The directories: $73 total

Paid for three:

  • Smol Launch, $19: a dofollow link from a DR 73 site. nixm ended up #1 Product of the Week.
  • BetaList, $39: a dofollow link from DR 76, refunded if they do not list you.
  • Uneed, $14.99: fast-track, dofollow.

Refused three that most "free startup directory" lists still call free: There's An AI For That at $347, Futurepedia at $197 and Toolify at $99. That is $643 not spent.

Free and worth doing: SaaSHub (fill in the competitors field, so you appear on their alternatives pages), Peerlist Launchpad, Fazier, Indie Hackers, AlternativeTo, LaunchNest, Startup Inspire, PeerPush and Nick Launches.

A grid of launch badges for nixm: Product Hunt, PeerPush, Smol Launch #1 Product of the Week, Uneed, Fazier, SaaSHub, Peerlist, LaunchNest, Nick Launches and Startup Inspire.
Six weeks of listings, in one picture.

What it did to Domain Rating

Ahrefs went from about zero to 4.7. It counts 411 linking websites, but only 18% of them are dofollow. Most of those "links" are aggregators copying directory listings. Directories put you on the map. They do not build authority, so expect a nudge, not a jump.

Ahrefs summary for nixm.ai: Domain Rating 4.7, 433 backlinks with 21% dofollow, 411 linking websites with 18% dofollow.
Ahrefs, October 2, 2026.

The surprise: links were not the bottleneck

The site has two clusters. One is AI privacy, with pages like is ChatGPT private and how to delete ChatGPT history. The other is AI video.

The privacy pages were indexed by Google in about a day, with zero outside links. Meanwhile 22 video pages sat in "Discovered – currently not indexed" for weeks: Google never crawled them.

Same site, same authority, same internal linking. The difference was the pages themselves. Each privacy page answers one specific question with sourced facts. Many of the video pages were near-identical "X alternative" pages with no media. The video pages Google did accept had real clips on them.

The curve

Weekly Google impressions, from Search Console:

Week startingImpressionsClicks
Aug 188227
Sep 11,76111
Sep 82,55019
Sep 152,99610
Sep 224,55331

That is roughly 35 to 40% growth a week. The last 28 days came to 71 clicks on 11,900 impressions. Small numbers, but compounding, and none of them bought.

What we changed for the stuck pages (results pending)

  • Merged five thin "alternative" pages into one hub, best AI video generators, with 301 redirects.
  • Added real clips, made in the product, to the main video pages.
  • Added a small "guides" block to article pages, linking the priority pages.

This page will be updated with what happened.

What backfired

X. I had been replying to threads about AI video and privacy, drafted in batches, sometimes several within minutes, sometimes with a link. The account got a "spam / platform manipulation" reach label. The replies were genuine, but the pattern looked automated, or so I assume, since X does not say. The lesson: one reply a day, no links in replies, mostly original posts.

Hacker News. The account was blocked the morning I planned a Show HN. I have emailed and have not heard back yet.

Reddit. Restricted early, with no reason given and no response. I have stopped using it.

Indie Hackers. A new account cannot post yet, which is why this report lives here.

If you are a new founder, assume your accounts on these platforms are on probation for longer than you think.

What I would do again

  • Write question-shaped pages that answer one thing, with sources.
  • Put real material on every page: a clip, a number, a screenshot. It seems to be what gets pages crawled.
  • Pay for two or three cheap, guaranteed dofollow listings, and skip the $100+ ones.
  • Fill in every "competitors" field you are offered.

What I would not

  • Write near-duplicate "X alternative" pages at scale.
  • Batch-reply on X.
  • Count on any single platform. Search, on your own domain, is the only channel nobody can label.

frequently asked

How much did the directory listings cost?

$73 in total: Smol Launch at $19, BetaList at $39 and Uneed at $14.99. Three pricier listings, totalling $643, were skipped.

Did directory listings raise Domain Rating?

Somewhat. Ahrefs went from about zero to 4.7, but only 18% of the 411 linking websites are dofollow. Directories put a site on the map without building much authority.

Why did some pages index fast and others not at all?

Question-shaped pages with sourced facts were indexed within about a day, with no outside links. Near-identical pages with no media were never crawled.

How fast did search traffic grow?

Weekly impressions grew from 822 to 4,553 in five weeks, roughly 35 to 40% a week.

Why was the X account labelled?

X does not say. The likely cause is the pattern: batches of replies to strangers within minutes, some with links.

Can I try nixm without an account?

Yes. Open nixm.ai and seed a signal, with no sign-up and no transcript kept.

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