Category · Checked October 2026
Business & company directories
Company databases and business listings, like Crunchbase and general web directories. 5 ranked by DirPilot Score: 3 give a dofollow link and 5 have a free option.
- Directories
- 5
- Dofollow
- 3
- Free option
- 5
- Median DR
- 80
Business directories hold a record of your company rather than a pitch for your product. Crunchbase tracks technology companies, people and funding, and sells that data to investors, sales teams and analysts. Brownbook and Hotfrog are general business listings with contact details, a category and a location. SubmissionWebDirectory and Marketing Internet Directory are classic web directories that file websites by topic.
People look you up here to check facts: where you're based, who runs the company, whether you've raised money. Crunchbase and Brownbook let other people edit records, so a profile you never claimed can drift out of date. Treat these listings as records to get right, not as a source of buyers.
Our picks
Where we'd start
- The startup company record
Free to create and edit. It focuses on funded and pre-funding startups, investors and tech companies, and may remove purely promotional profiles. Verify your employment through Manage My Company to control some of your Overview section.
- DR
- 91
- Price
- Free
- Link
- unchecked
- Free listing you can lock
Listing, claiming and Profile+ extras like images and video are all free, and the site says adding and updating is instant. Claiming verifies the listing and locks edits to you; an unclaimed one is open to anyone. Our imported data marks the link dofollow; we haven't checked a live listing yet.
- DR
- 80
- Price
- Free
- Link
- dofollow
- For local and service businesses
HotFrog
71Up to 10 listings are free, each with a description, category, location, contact details and reviews. It suits businesses with a physical location or service area better than online-only software, and the website link is nofollow.
- DR
- 82
- Price
- Free
- Link
- nofollow
All 5, ranked by DirPilot Score
| Directory | Score | DR | Visits/mo | Price | Link | Approval | Indexed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrunchbaseCRUN | 94 | 91 | — | Free | unchecked | 0d | — |
| BrownbookBROW | 90 | 80 | 490K | Free | dofollow | 0d | — |
| HotFrogHOTF | 71 | 82 | — | Free | nofollow | — | — |
| SubmissionWebDirectorySUBM | 65 | 61 | — | Free+ | dofollow | 56d | — |
| Marketing Internet DirectoryMIDA | 63 | 58 | 52K | Free+ | dofollow | 70d | — |
Choosing
How to choose
Write one fact sheet and reuse it
Before you submit anywhere, write the facts down once, from your company name exactly as you use it to your founding date, and copy from that sheet every time. An old address on one site and a different founding year on another make people wonder which is right, and they're tedious to hunt down later.
Claim records others can edit
Crunchbase lets any registered user create or edit a company profile, and Brownbook calls itself the listing database "that anyone can edit". Claim wherever you can: on Crunchbase through Manage My Company, and on Brownbook with its free claim, which locks edits to you. On Hotfrog, changes go through the listing itself; support doesn't edit listings by phone or email.
State facts, not marketing
Crunchbase's guidelines say content must be accurate and objective and "cannot be used as a marketing tool". Its best-practices article asks for third-person descriptions without words like "best" or dated ones like "new". That restraint reads well on every directory here.
Checklist
Before you submit
Pre-flight checklist6 items
- Your company fact sheet: name, website, headquarters, founding date, industries and founders, identical everywhere.
- Two third-person descriptions. Crunchbase wants a short one and a long one that opens with a one-sentence summary. SubmissionWebDirectory caps titles at 100 characters and descriptions at 700.
- A Crunchbase account linked to Google or LinkedIn. You can't add a profile until it's socially authenticated.
- Funding details with sources: for each closed round, the amount, date, investors and a press reference.
- A duplicate check. Search Crunchbase and Brownbook for your company before you add it.
- A clean website. SubmissionWebDirectory rejects sites with popups and asks for working links.
Method
How we check these directories
Each directory gets a DirPilot Score out of 100 from up to five checks: authority (35 points), how reliably its listings get indexed by Google (30), whether the listing link is dofollow (15), cost (10) and approval speed (10). A check we haven't done yet is left out of the score rather than guessed, so no directory is rewarded or marked down for data we don't have.
Each directory's own page shows its checks, the date and the sources.
Checks in this category
- Authority (domain rating)5/5
- Link type3 dofollow4/5
- Pricing5/5
- Approval time4/5
- Indexation0/5
Directory data checked October 2026.
FAQ
Common questions
Can I create my own Crunchbase profile?
Yes, with a free account. The paid Pro, Business and API plans are for searching and exporting data, not for listing a company. After linking your account to Google or LinkedIn, go to Resources, then Create Profile.
Crunchbase says edits can typically be viewed instantly. If they haven't appeared after 24 hours, it asks you to email support.
Why would Crunchbase remove a company profile?
Its removal criteria include profiles that are purely advertisements, web directories and website submission sites, small local businesses, and profiles written entirely in a language other than English.
If you run a local service business, Brownbook or Hotfrog is the better fit.
Should I pay for a featured web directory listing?
Only if you want the listing itself. SubmissionWebDirectory and Marketing Internet Directory both gave followed links on the listings we checked, but their free queues are slow: 6 to 8 weeks at the first, and 8 to 10 weeks with a "low chance of approval" at the second. Featured links ($6.49 a year and $5.94) are reviewed within a day or two.
Google's spam policies count paid links that pass ranking credit, and links from low-quality directories, as link spam. If you buy a featured spot, buy it for the category page, not as a ranking shortcut.
All categories
Get listed on every directory that fits.
One form, then we handle the submissions, the follow-ups and the backlink checks.