Niche Switch

It’s completely beyond me what’s the value in tracking the acceptance of submissions to free seo friendly directories. Some clients want to get a report for where their website will be listed, and some submission services even offer this service as standard. IMHO it’s just a waste of time.
1) They are free directories. They are no more free after you have spent time on them or paid submission service. If you spend further time with tracking, you are increasing your costs.

2) The url of where your link will be listed is changing, and will be changing, especially in highly competitive categories like real estate or mortgage, due to pagination. So that in 10-30% of the cases, maybe more, you will get a false “no backlink” message, while in fact your are listed, just that it’s on the page no. 2 and up of that particular category.

The only sound reason for submission tracking to me would be if you are new to submitting to free directories, and you want to find out what’s the approximate approval rate, ie. to confirm for yourself whether the efforts or money spent are worth it.