The seven checks
In rough order of how much signal each one carries.
- What are they selling? "Do-follow, high DA" means they are selling ranking signals, which makes the listing a liability. "Visibility and clicks" means they are selling something they can deliver.
- Will they show you a real number? Ask for the click count on a listing like yours. A figure is a good sign, a range is acceptable, a change of subject is the answer.
- Is there an editorial standard? If anything that pays gets in, nothing in it is worth being in.
- Would you use it to find something? If you would not, your buyers will not either.
- Is the content on the listing pages written or generated? Hundreds of pages that are one template with a swapped name is a site that is about to have an indexing problem, and your listing will have it too.
- Do they ask for a reciprocal link? That is a link exchange, which Google's policies name directly. Walk away.
- Can you leave? Check that removal is possible and free before you join.
The ones that are harder to spot
The sophisticated version looks like a real publication: a clean design, a blog, maybe a podcast. The tell is still the pitch. If the paid tier promises anything about rankings — "authority", "link juice", "DA boost" — the business model is link selling with better typography, and the enforcement risk transfers to you.
The other tell is fabricated metrics. If every listing conveniently shows thousands of views and the numbers are suspiciously round or suspiciously uniform, they are generated. Ask how a specific figure was measured and watch what happens.
Applying this to us
It would be strange to publish this list and not be judged by it, so: we sell visibility and label it, we nofollow everything including paid slots, we publish raw click counts and say "no clicks recorded yet" instead of showing a flattering zero, we review submissions by hand, we ask for no reciprocal link, and removal is one message and no argument.
The check we fail: we are young, so the honest answer to "how much traffic will I get" is that it is currently small and we are not going to dress that up. If you need volume today, a bigger directory in your niche is a better use of your money, and we would rather tell you that than take it.