Short answer: before day 1, get the technical basics right (robots.txt, sitemap, canonical and hreflang, IndexNow, edge caching, analytics events) and check every page in both languages at four widths. In week 1, post on Reddit and X only from a real device, open a batch of awesome-list PRs, and submit to free directories at 3–5 a day. In weeks 2–4, recheck every listing yourself, do one long-form community post, and review search data before touching titles. Pace matters more than volume: my X account got locked for replying too much.

This is the checklist I now copy into every new product I build alone. It came out of launching Vaneform in October 2026 and reusing it for MeetNewAI and EarlyLore. The failures are left in on purpose.

What rules apply to every channel?

  1. Never pay for listings. Every paid "skip the queue" offer I saw (from $16 to $299) got a no. Free channels and GitHub PRs only.
  2. Disclose honestly. "I'm a solo dev and built this with a lot of help from AI" worked better than pretending to be a neutral user.
  3. Prepare accounts first. More than 30 directories were skipped because they only allowed Google or GitHub sign-in and I didn't have a session ready.
  4. Pace over volume. At most 2 launch-level submissions a week, 2–3 community posts a week, 1 original X post a day at most. A locked account costs far more than one missed post.
  5. Verify everything yourself. Review times, dofollow claims and "you're live" emails are all checked against the page's real HTML.
  6. Log every action with site, time, method, status and any paid option you declined.

What should be done before day 1?

Technical SEO

  • robots.txt that allows crawlers and lists the sitemap. Don't block AI crawlers; cache them (I wrote up why and how).
  • sitemap.xml, canonical on every page, hreflang pairs if you have two languages.
  • Unknown URLs return a real 404 with noindex.
  • An IndexNow key file, and an IndexNow ping after every deploy.
  • Edge caching for public pages with stale-if-error, and Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode off (on the free plan it can't exempt verified bots like Bingbot).
  • Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, sitemap submitted to both.

Product

  • Funnel events in analytics. If all you track is page views, you'll learn nothing from the launch.
  • No realistic-looking placeholder data. On V2EX, a user took the fake sample numbers on a locked feature for real data. Placeholders must look like placeholders: blurred, grey, labelled "Sample".
  • Screenshot every page in both languages at 390, 768, 1024 and 1440 pixels, light and dark. Chinese and English copy differ a lot in length.

Launch kit

Name, a tagline under 60 characters, a 150-word description in each language, a 512px logo, a 1200×630 social image, category and pricing. Every directory asks for the same fields.

What happens in week 1?

  • Reddit and X only from a real device and IP. From a datacenter IP, Reddit blocked me outright and X put the account behind a Cloudflare access check.
  • Reddit: r/SideProject was the most forgiving; my post survived and got two real comments. On r/indiehackers, a 1-karma account's product post was removed instantly by AutoMod. New accounts should comment for a week or two before posting.
  • X: I replied to many posts in a short time and the account got locked for "unusual activity". Impressions afterwards fell from 118 on the launch post to 5–19 on the next posts, and one post got 1 impression in 24 hours. The lesson: when a new account is throttled, posting more makes it worse. Stop, confirm your posts are visible from another account, then resume slowly.
  • Awesome-list PRs: open 3–5 that genuinely fit. Expect merges in weeks.
  • Directories: 5–10 free ones with no OAuth wall, 3–5 a day. My notes on which free directories actually gave dofollow links cover this in detail.
  • MCP products: publish to the Official MCP Registry first; other MCP directories pick it up from there.

What happens in weeks 2–4?

Week 2: recheck every week-1 listing yourself (is it live, is it noindex, what's the rel). Search your inbox with a 3-day window for approval emails; a 1-day window missed some. Do one long-form community post, such as a detailed answer on Zhihu or an honest r/SideProject post.

Week 3: if your funnel tracking works, consider a Show HN. Don't poll HN for questions to answer; I searched every two hours for days and found zero fitting threads for a niche tool. Once a week is enough.

Week 4: review. Which directories went live? Is Bing indexing you? What are people searching to find you? On Vaneform, 95% of early Search Console impressions were people searching for other sites' names, and intent keywords averaged position 49.6. So don't rewrite titles early; work on links first.

What would I do differently?

  • Set up the X account on a real device from day one and never batch replies.
  • Build the analytics funnel before launch, not after.
  • Write the honest disclosure into every template from the start.
  • Before building the next thing, check whether real products in the space have revenue signals. That's the question I built EarlyLore to answer.

FAQ

How many directories should I submit to per day?

I cap it at 3–5 new submissions per product per day and never submit two of my products to the same directory on the same day. Directories notice same-day batches from one maker.

Should I post my launch on Reddit from a new account?

Expect it to be removed in strict subreddits. My product post on r/indiehackers from a 1-karma account was deleted by AutoMod instantly, while r/SideProject kept it. Comment genuinely for a week or two first.

Why did my X account get limited after launch?

Mine was locked for "unusual activity" after many replies in a short time, and impressions dropped from 118 on the launch post to 5–19 on later posts. Posting from a datacenter IP also triggered extra checks. Slow down and post from a real device.

When should I change my page titles for SEO?

Not in the first weeks. Early Search Console data is mostly navigational noise; on Vaneform, 95% of impressions were searches for other sites' names. Build links and internal links first, then revisit titles with real query data.