# Verdy

> Verdy audits websites for search and AI visibility, and keeps an agent-maintained directory of software: products found as they launch, read from their own sites, with every fact quoted and a Verdy Score for each.

## For agents

- [Search the directory](https://www.verdy.site/api/v1/search?q=free+tool+to+turn+long+youtube+videos+into+shorts): GET with q= in plain words, or category=, freePlan=true, api=true, limit= (max 25). Returns ranked products with reasons; "free" and "api" in q are treated as requirements.
- [One product](https://www.verdy.site/api/v1/tools/example.com): GET /api/v1/tools/{host} for the full profile, score parts, verified answers and alternatives.
- [Methodology](https://www.verdy.site/directory/methodology): how products are found, verified and scored.

## Directory

- [New this week](https://www.verdy.site/directory/new)

## Guides

- [How to Build in Public in 2026: What to Share, Where to Post and How to Keep It Up](https://www.verdy.site/blog/how-to-build-in-public): Building in public means sharing how you build your product as you go, including the numbers, decisions and mistakes, so people follow along before and after launch. To do it, pick one or two places your buyers already read, post a short update on a fixed schedule (weekly is enough), share real numbers and lessons rather than announcements, reply to everyone, and keep private anything about customers, security or other people. Consistency matters more than any single viral post.
- [How to Launch on Hacker News With Show HN: The Rules, the Title and Why Posts Get Flagged](https://www.verdy.site/blog/show-hn-guide): A Show HN is a Hacker News post for something you made that people can try right now. Submit it with a title starting "Show HN:" followed by a plain description, link to something usable without a signup wall, add a hand-written first comment with the backstory, and stay to answer questions. Don't ask anyone to upvote or comment, don't post landing pages or waitlists, and know that new accounts are temporarily restricted from posting Show HNs in 2026.
- [How to Launch on Product Hunt in 2026: The Checklist, the Rules and What It Costs](https://www.verdy.site/blog/how-to-launch-on-product-hunt): To launch on Product Hunt, post it yourself from a personal account that is at least a week old, schedule it for 12:01am Pacific up to a month ahead, and prepare a name, a tagline of up to 60 characters, a short description, a 240 by 240 thumbnail, at least two 1270 by 760 gallery images and a first comment from the maker. Launching is free. Don't ask anyone for upvotes; tell people you're live and ask for feedback, then reply to every comment for the full 24 hours.
- [How to Promote Your Startup on Reddit Without Getting Banned (2026 Rules, Subreddit by Subreddit)](https://www.verdy.site/blog/promote-on-reddit): To promote on Reddit without getting banned, take part in a subreddit before you post, read its rules, and post your product only where and when the rules allow it, such as r/SideProject, a weekly share thread or Showoff Saturday. Write the post yourself, lead with the problem or what you learned, say plainly that you made it, ask for feedback, and stay to reply. Reddit's own help center says that if your posts are mostly links to your own business, you should post less often or use ads.
- [Landing Page Checklist for a SaaS Launch: 30 Checks With Pass or Fail Thresholds](https://www.verdy.site/blog/landing-page-checklist): A good launch landing page passes four tests. A stranger can say what it is and who it's for after five seconds, there is one obvious next step above the fold, the claims are believable (real proof, visible pricing, a real person behind it), and the page loads fast and previews well when shared. Check the message and call to action first, because no amount of speed or SEO fixes a page nobody understands.
- [Meta Title Length and How to Write a Meta Description That Gets the Click (2026)](https://www.verdy.site/blog/meta-title-and-description): Google doesn't limit how long a title or meta description can be, but it truncates both to fit the screen, so aim for about 50 to 60 characters for titles and about 140 to 160 for descriptions. Put the words people search first, name the product and what it does, and write a unique title and description for every page. Google uses your title element most of the time, but rewrites titles that are vague, stuffed, boilerplate or don't match the page.
- [OG Image Size in 2026: The Right Dimensions for X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Slack, Plus the Tags](https://www.verdy.site/blog/og-image-size): Use a 1200 by 630 pixel image (a 1.91 to 1 ratio) as a PNG or JPG under 5 MB, referenced with an absolute HTTPS URL in og:image. That size meets Meta's recommendation, LinkedIn's minimum of 1200 by 627, and X's large-image card. Add og:title, og:description, og:url and og:type, set twitter:card to summary_large_image, and keep important text away from the edges because X crops toward 2 to 1.
- [SoftwareApplication Schema for SaaS: JSON-LD Examples, Google's Rules and What It Does for AI Search](https://www.verdy.site/blog/softwareapplication-schema): A SaaS homepage should carry three JSON-LD blocks, Organization, WebSite and SoftwareApplication (or its WebApplication subtype). For Google's software app rich result, SoftwareApplication needs a name, offers.price (0 if free) and either aggregateRating or review, with applicationCategory and operatingSystem recommended. Only mark up ratings that are real and visible on the page. Google says no special schema is required to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, so use schema to state facts clearly, not as an AI ranking trick.
- [Best AI Visibility Tools in 2026: 11 AEO and GEO Tools Compared and Scored](https://www.verdy.site/blog/best-ai-visibility-tools): The best AI visibility tool depends on your budget and whether you need daily tracking or a one-time check with fixes. AthenaHQ scored highest on our rubric thanks to wide engine coverage and a free plan, Otterly.AI (from $29 a month) and Rankscale (from $20, Pro $99) are the value picks for daily tracking, and Profound is the enterprise option. If you already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs, try their AI visibility features first, and if you've just launched, fix AI readiness before paying for monitoring.
- [Best Free Website Analyzers and SEO Audit Tools in 2026: 10 Compared and Scored](https://www.verdy.site/blog/best-free-website-analyzers): The best free website analyzer is a small stack, not one tool. Use Google Search Console for Google's own indexing and search data, PageSpeed Insights for speed, one crawler (Screaming Frog's free version up to 500 URLs, or Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) for site-wide issues, and Verdy for AI readiness and what to fix first. Bing Webmaster Tools scored highest on our rubric because it pairs a free crawler with first-party search and AI citation data.
- [Best Startup and SaaS Directories in 2026: A Tiered List Worth Your Time](https://www.verdy.site/blog/startup-saas-directories): The startup directories worth your time in 2026 are a short list: Product Hunt, Peerlist Launchpad, Indie Hackers, AlternativeTo and SaaSHub for almost every software product, then G2 and Capterra if you sell to businesses, one AI directory if you build AI, OpenAlternative and awesome-selfhosted if you are open source, and the right app or extension store. Submit to the 10 to 20 that fit your product over two weeks, not 200. Directories bring referral traffic, trust, a few links and a place in the sources AI answers draw from, but they will not rank your site on their own.
- [Can AI Crawlers Read Your Website? How to Check and Allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot](https://www.verdy.site/blog/check-ai-crawler-access): To let AI assistants read your site, allow their search crawlers and user-triggered agents in robots.txt (OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User for ChatGPT, Claude-SearchBot and Claude-User for Claude, PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User for Perplexity) and make sure your CDN or firewall isn't blocking them. Training crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and CCBot are separate, so you can refuse training without disappearing from AI search. Then confirm access in your server logs, not just in robots.txt.
- [How to Get Recommended by ChatGPT and AI Search: A Practical Plan for 2026](https://www.verdy.site/blog/how-to-get-recommended-by-chatgpt): ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features mostly recommend what they find when they search the web for your buyer's question, so you get recommended by being readable and by being mentioned in the pages they cite. Let their search crawlers in, get listed in the reviews, directories, comparisons and threads those answers pull from, describe your product the same way everywhere, and publish pages that answer buying questions directly. Nobody can guarantee a mention, but you can measure your share with a monthly prompt test.
- [How to Get Your First 10 Backlinks: Realistic Sources for a Brand-New Website](https://www.verdy.site/blog/first-10-backlinks): Start with links you already qualify for: showcases of the tools you build with, launch platforms and directories, alternatives listings, and GitHub awesome lists if you make developer tools. Then earn a handful of editorial links from integration partners, unlinked mentions, resource pages, journalist requests, podcasts and one or two guest posts. Ten relevant links from real sites in your niche do more for a new site than hundreds of directory submissions, and buying links breaks Google's spam policies.
- [How to Get Your First 100 Website Visitors: A 14-Day Plan for a Site With No Audience](https://www.verdy.site/blog/first-100-website-visitors): For a brand-new site with no audience, the first 100 visitors come from going where people already are, not from SEO: personal messages to people who fit your buyer, one or two launch platforms, genuine posts in a few relevant communities, directories, niche newsletters, and helpful replies in threads where buyers ask about your problem. Spread these over two weeks, with copy written for each place. Start SEO, comparison pages and backlinks on day one too, but expect them to pay off in months, not days.
- [Product Hunt Alternatives in 2026: Where to Launch Instead, by Product Type](https://www.verdy.site/blog/product-hunt-alternatives): The best Product Hunt alternatives in 2026 are Peerlist Launchpad for most tech products, Hacker News (Show HN) for anything technical people can try right away, DevHunt for developer tools, There's An AI For That for AI tools, BetaList for pre-launch startups, and Indie Hackers plus small boards like Uneed and Microlaunch for indie makers. You don't have to pick one: most founders get more from stacking three or four of these over two weeks than from a single Product Hunt day.
- [Verdy vs Ahrefs: Do You Need Ahrefs for a New Website?](https://www.verdy.site/blog/verdy-vs-ahrefs): Verdy and Ahrefs do different jobs. Ahrefs is a full SEO suite with a huge backlink index, keyword research and rank tracking, priced from $29 a month (Starter) and $129 a month (Lite) as of September 2026. Verdy has none of those; it audits a new site, tells you exactly what to fix for search and AI answers, and shows you where to launch and get listed, free or for a one-time $30 Fix pack. Most new sites should start with Verdy plus the free Ahrefs account, then pay for Ahrefs once content SEO becomes a real channel.
- [Verdy vs Google Search Console: Which Do You Need in 2026?](https://www.verdy.site/blog/verdy-vs-google-search-console): Verdy and Google Search Console do different jobs, so most sites should use both. Search Console is Google's own free data on how your site is indexed and found in Google, and nothing replaces it. Verdy reads your site the way a crawler and an AI assistant would, tells you what to fix and where to get listed, and can connect to Search Console read-only to put your real queries next to its findings.
- [Website Launch Checklist 2026: What to Check Before, During and After You Go Live](https://www.verdy.site/blog/website-launch-checklist): Before a website goes live, check that it can be found and trusted: HTTPS on one domain version, no leftover noindex, a working robots.txt and XML sitemap, unique titles and descriptions, link previews, fast mobile pages, tested forms and emails, legal pages, and AI crawler access. On launch day, announce in two or three places that fit your audience, with copy written for each. In the first 30 days, set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap, list in relevant directories and watch which pages get indexed.
- [Why Isn't My New Website Showing Up on Google? Find the Cause in 7 Steps](https://www.verdy.site/blog/new-website-not-showing-on-google): If your new website isn't on Google, search site:yourdomain.com first. No results means Google hasn't indexed you yet, so inspect your homepage in Google Search Console and read the exact status it reports. On a new site the usual culprits are a crawl that hasn't happened yet or a leftover noindex tag or robots.txt rule. Fix the cause, request indexing once, and expect days to a few weeks before pages appear.

## Tools

- [Launch console](https://www.verdy.site/app/start): a Launch Score for your site and a ranked list of launch platforms, directories and communities to get listed on. Free.
- [Website audit](https://www.verdy.site/audit): crawl a site, find what is broken, get the files that fix it. Free.
- [AI visibility verdict](https://www.verdy.site/verdict): whether AI assistants recommend you for your buyers' questions, and how to get in.
- [Is this vibe coded?](https://www.verdy.site/vibe): measures how vibe coded a site looks. Free.
- [Pricing](https://www.verdy.site/#pricing)