---
title: "How List Maro ranks SaaS tools"
source: /blog/how-list-maro-ranks-saas-tools
description: "Human review, community upvotes, and why paid placement never buys rank — the ranking rules behind every List Maro page."
updated: 2026-08-05
---

# How List Maro ranks SaaS tools

Human review, community upvotes, and why paid placement never buys rank — the ranking rules behind every List Maro page.

Directories die when ranking becomes a pay-to-win auction. List Maro is built so that does not happen. This page is the plain-language version of the rules already enforced in code and product copy.

## 1. Nothing auto-publishes

Every listing enters a **moderation queue**. A person decides whether it goes live, gets rejected, or needs changes. That is slower than scraping the internet, and that is intentional: a human-reviewed catalog is the only catalog worth ranking.

## 2. Votes move the feed; age keeps it honest

Public feeds use community upvotes with **age decay**. A product that launched last year cannot sit on raw vote totals forever while better tools ship. The exact gravity is an implementation detail; the product promise is simpler: early submission is not a permanent crown.

## 3. Paid placement is visibility, not rank

Sponsored slots exist. They are:

- **Labelled** as promoted / paid where they appear
- **Inventory-capped** so the rail does not become a wall of ads
- **Never sold as dofollow link equity** — paid outbound links use `rel="sponsored"`

If a ranking table on a category, tag, or blog embed shows a promoted product, the UI says so. Editorial order and paid order are different systems.

## 4. Outbound link policy is fixed

Editorially approved free listings may earn a normal follow link after review. Paid placements do not. That is not a marketing preference — selling follow links is a link scheme that would devalue the whole domain, including honest listings.

## 5. Thin pages stay out of the index

Empty category hubs, single-listing tag pages, and empty alternatives pages are kept out of the index until they have enough substance. Programmatic URLs without substance are how directories lose trust with crawlers. We would rather show fewer URLs than pollute the sitemap.

## 6. Machine readers get the same truth

Markdown renditions (`.md`), `llms.txt`, and the public JSON API state whether a placement was paid. Agents summarising “best CRM” should not have to reverse-engineer the UI to see sponsorship.

## How to use List Maro

- Start from [categories](/categories) or [explore](/tools)
- Read product pages for tagline, pricing model, and related tools
- Use alternatives and compare pages when editors have linked a pair
- [Submit a product](/submit) if you want to be reviewed for inclusion

## Related guides

- [How to choose AI tools as a founder](/blog/best-ai-tools)
- [Best developer tools to ship faster](/blog/best-developer-tools)
- [Best CRM and sales tools for small teams](/blog/best-crm-sales-tools)


Canonical: /blog/how-list-maro-ranks-saas-tools