5 Directories Under a Year Old That Are Already Making Money

Today I'm going to be showing you five directories under a year old that are already making money. And these were pulled from my database from last week's video where I scraped over 27,000 websites from Raptive, Ezoic, and

Mediavine. So, I chose some of my fan

Mediavine. So, I chose some of my fan favorites just looking through this database, and they're in such random niches, so I wanted to go over them.

Hopefully, this kind of gives you an idea of the timeline when it comes to how long it takes to actually monetize and roughly how much you probably could make. Although it's unclear, we can kind

make. Although it's unclear, we can kind of get an idea based on which program that these websites are involved in. So,

a common question that I get is how long does it take to monetize a directory?

And the answer is it depends on the type of directory that you're building. In my

experience and my research, lead generation directories just take so much longer because it's more competitive from an SEO perspective. You're having

to go against individual business websites if you were to create, say, like a plumber directory. But with

content directories like the ones we're about to show you, they're way faster cuz they don't have to deal with as much competition in the search engine results page. Fast in this world, in my opinion,

page. Fast in this world, in my opinion, is about 6 months. That's the fastest I've been able to get a website into an ad network and make any substantial amount of money. Uh my first directory

was 6 months old when it hit about 30,000 monthly visitors and I joined Ezoic and then later joined Mediavine, and it was making about $1,200 a month.

Candidly, it's gone down since I made these YouTube videos cuz people find my sites and copy them. But that's okay.

That's why I find these types of directories so that I can look at what's working, what's already growing quickly, and then find adjacent niches that I can go and build directories in and monetize, hopefully, just as quickly.

So, with that said, let's go ahead and dive right in, and I'm going to start with the first one, which is restareasnearme.com.

restareasnearme.com.

Great name. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. You can find rest areas

straightforward. You can find rest areas around the US. Here's the website here.

This is on Mediavine Journey, so we can see the ads right here. It is a ridiculously simple website. When you

click on find states, you can just click on any of the states here. If we click on Alabama, we can see that they're utilizing a pillar page structure, meaning it's just one long page that just goes down. And looking at this,

it's shockingly similar to some of my directories that are also pillar pages.

But yeah, you can see that it's not an actual individual listing page because that wouldn't make sense for this particular niche, right? A pillar page is the perfect structure and the format for this. And we can see that there's

for this. And we can see that there's some information like a photo, a map embed, a description, and some amenities. We have some extra

amenities. We have some extra copywriting, FAQs, and that is pretty much it. I'm surprised they don't have

much it. I'm surprised they don't have internal links. They should probably add

internal links. They should probably add those. But it doesn't stop it from

those. But it doesn't stop it from getting traffic. They have 2,000 rest

getting traffic. They have 2,000 rest areas across the country. So, when we look at the Ahrefs data, what's so interesting about this is that it's literally a DR0. It has 3,500 monthly

visitors. Here is the growth chart right

visitors. Here is the growth chart right over here. It looks like it just started

over here. It looks like it just started literally at the very beginning of this year. So, that makes it around 9 months

year. So, that makes it around 9 months old, 9 to 10 months old. It's ranking

for 558 keywords. Let's take a look. All

right. So, it's on the first page for a bunch of rest area keywords, which is expected. But look at how much traffic

expected. But look at how much traffic there is for this keyword. Rest area

near me, 69,000 monthly searches. It's a

keyword difficulty 22, and they're position four. And so, that is pretty

position four. And so, that is pretty impressive for a website with no backlinks. And the reason I say there's

backlinks. And the reason I say there's no backlinks, by the way, is because it's a DR0 with 600 referring domains and backlinks. I would be willing to bet

and backlinks. I would be willing to bet these are pretty weak or just spam backlinks, which we can double-check.

Let's just go ahead and do one link per domain. Okay, so they have one backlink

domain. Okay, so they have one backlink that's a do-follow non-spammy backlink, and it is from this website right here, which looks like a directory itself,

which means it's not that strong of a backlink. If this isn't proof that you

backlink. If this isn't proof that you can make a very simple directory, drive up of traffic, not build any backlinks, and then just monetize it through an ad network, then I don't know what to tell you because this is literally what's

happening right here. It's all US-based traffic as well, which is nice. My guess

on why this is working is that rest areas might not be showing up on Google Maps. Maybe I'm wrong. There is a

Maps. Maybe I'm wrong. There is a category for rest stops as we can see here. Um so, maybe it was as simple as

here. Um so, maybe it was as simple as scraping this data and just putting it on a directory. I think you can probably figure out an adjacent niche to rest stops, things that may just be as low

competition as this that you can just create and monetize pretty quickly. I

will say that this is probably the lowest earning website on the list because it's the only one on Mediavine journey and you only need 1,000 monthly sessions to get in, whereas the other ones I'm about to show you are on

Mediavine's traditional program where it needs to make at least $5,000 a year or they're on Raptive. So, just a heads-up, if you are planning to build in this niche, you're probably not going to make more than probably $200 a month if I

were to guess. And that's assuming that they're getting more traffic than 3,500 monthly organic visitors. Otherwise,

there's not much more to say other than that this is a super low competition directory to build. The second one on this list is called mypeptidematch.com and it is my favorite one on this list

because it's a hot topic and it's also one of the fastest growing directories that I've seen in a while. It's all

around peptide therapy clinics. There's

4,700 verified clinics and this is what the website looks like. You can browse by treatment, which is smart. They

created a bunch of great pages, not just your standard directory pages like location pages to find peptide clinics, but they also created a bunch of different tools. Uh they have a bunch of

different tools. Uh they have a bunch of blogs and I think this is such a smart directory to create. I can't believe I didn't think about it myself, to be honest. Um very, very clean-looking.

honest. Um very, very clean-looking.

Let's take a look at the Ahrefs data.

So, this directory is roughly 7 months old and it already shows it's getting 28,000 monthly organic visitors, although we know it's probably more.

What's interesting is that they started getting a lot of traffic around late May to early June, which is only about 4 months ago, but they were admitted into the program 7 months ago. So, even

though there's no data to show that they're getting any traffic, we know that they were because they got into Mediavine's traditional program, which means they had to have been getting enough traffic to get an expected

minimum of $5,000 a year through Mediavine's program. That also makes it

Mediavine's program. That also makes it the youngest directory on this list. So,

it is just a crazy crazy chart of growth. This directory has 772 pages,

growth. This directory has 772 pages, and their top traffic pages are actually not location pages or any kind of standard directory pages. They're

actually tools. So, this is a peptide units converter, and this is getting a ton of traffic. It's getting 4,000 monthly visitors just from this one page, and we can see that the top

keyword is 1 mg to units syringe. That

is the top keyword it's ranking for, and all of these other kind of measurement keywords, which is giving me ideas as to different types of keywords you can probably build tools for. They're really

low competition with a lot of search volume, as you can see, and they're ranking position one page one for a lot of these keywords. So, that could be an idea if you're looking to get more traffic and monetize through display

ads, which is creating kind of boring tools and calculators. Those are not all saturated, as we're seeing here. We do

have Friday Plans as the second most trafficked page, which is an actual listing page, it seems. This is a telehealth offering generic Viagra and

Cialis from under $1 per dose. And this

is what their listing page looks like.

It is a pretty simple listing page, but it is getting 2,100 monthly visitors.

So, there must be a lot of people who are looking up Friday Plans. Okay, there

it is. There's 50,000 people a month looking up Friday Plans, and they're ranking on the first page towards the end. That explains why they're able to

end. That explains why they're able to get so much traffic to a single listing page, which is kind of uncommon to see.

So, we're seeing boring tools, we're seeing listing pages. I'm even seeing blogs like this one right here around CJC 1295, and it is getting 1,200

monthly visitors, and it is ranking for a bunch of branded keywords as well. And

that kind of seems like their strategy is target branded keywords or actual businesses, which are also branded keywords. Super smart niche, so popular.

keywords. Super smart niche, so popular.

I feel like I see peptides being talked about everywhere. I don't know much

about everywhere. I don't know much about them to be honest, but jumping on the trend and having first mover's advantage, super smart when it comes to directories. So, props to this person,

directories. So, props to this person, whoever created this. And uh look at that, the organic traffic just went up a little bit just in the last few minutes that I've been covering this. I do want

to take a quick peek at their backlinks.

So, they have 47 backlinks that are do-follow and non-spammy. A lot of them don't have root domain traffic, which is something that I look for immediately, which tells me that they could have some

backlinks show up here that aren't necessarily strong backlinks at all. Um

but definitely some of them are pretty solid and very relevant. 47 backlinks

out of 4,100 are good. Um I am curious what kind of ways they're monetizing besides display ads. I'm wondering if there's some kind of B2B lead generation

or featured listings play. I don't see any featured listings just from this quick search. So, they do have a request

quick search. So, they do have a request to consultation lead form here. I'm kind

of wondering what they do with that, but I would assume it's a lead generation play of some sort. The third directory is trivianearme.net, and it is another pretty simple website.

It's so funny, back when I started YouTube, I talked to a guy who built a trivia directory that was getting a lot of traffic, like 7,000 monthly visitors with very little effort. But he

complained that the biggest issue was just keeping all the information updated and aggregating it from multiple sources, which now is really not a problem with AI coding tools. That is

super solvable, and it kind of opens up the directory potential to event directories, job boards, anything that used to be a really big pain aggregating a bunch of data and just like formatting

it nicely on a directory like this. So,

it's cool to see that someone built this out and is succeeding and obviously making money through display ads. But,

this is the whole website. It's really

simple. You just look up venues, cities, or companies and the listing pages are really simple as well. It just says the name, the time, address, phone, a little description. We're not really talking

description. We're not really talking about the most complex directory in the world. When it comes to the stats, this

world. When it comes to the stats, this is 11 months old and it's getting 16,000 monthly organic visitors according to Ahrefs. Look at this explosive spike in

Ahrefs. Look at this explosive spike in the traffic, especially this month. It's

been doing really well this month. It's

ranking for 1,200 keywords, DR 20, and it doesn't have too many backlinks. We

have pop culture trivia, 13,000 monthly searches with a keyword difficulty zero.

Of course, we have trivia near me. Both

are ranking at the top of the first page. And uh 90s trivia, 1,000 random

page. And uh 90s trivia, 1,000 random trivia questions for adults. Is this a blog? Okay, so this is actually not a

blog? Okay, so this is actually not a directory page. It's kind of a blog

directory page. It's kind of a blog article. That's pretty smart, actually.

article. That's pretty smart, actually.

This is the kind of stuff that I feel like improves your chances at getting into an ad network because they're not just listing pages, they're actual like articles and seems like this one is very

thorough. Well, there's 3,800 questions,

thorough. Well, there's 3,800 questions, that's why. Kind of the same story,

that's why. Kind of the same story, right? We're seeing a lot of these

right? We're seeing a lot of these directories that are ranking really quickly. Target these low competition

quickly. Target these low competition keywords with at least a few hundred monthly searches. So, if you do have

monthly searches. So, if you do have Ahrefs or SEMrush and you're looking for these types of ideas, start observing the trends when it comes to how much search volume, what the keyword difficulty is, and you can use this in

the Ahrefs keyword explorer to find other ideas and niches like this. From

the looks of the backlink and referring domain spread, it doesn't look like they have many backlinks, but it looks like they have solid quality backlinks. And

that's what we're going to check. Ooh,

they have a backlink from visitwichita.com. It's a DR 65 with

visitwichita.com. It's a DR 65 with almost 10 million monthly visitors going to their root domain. So, that is a really nice backlink, and the actual

article is around weekly trivia night for Tour Brewing. That's solid. Um

travelportland.com, so a lot of like local blogs are picking this up. They're

kind of incentivized to link out to websites like this trivia directory because they're having to constantly update their website, too, cuz it's like local events, probably. So, that's a pretty smart play, as well. I didn't

think about that. So, if we were to purchase a backlink like this, this would probably be like $500 to $1,000 for one of these best links, just based on the DR, the traffic, and the

relevance. If they didn't pay for it,

relevance. If they didn't pay for it, then that's really really solid. I'm

going to take a look at their top pages.

So, there's 476 pages. They have 9,897

pages. They have 9,897 venues in 2,100 cities. So, Ahrefs

probably isn't pulling all of them up.

And then, I'm seeing a lot of location pages, city-specific location pages, like Houston. Um there's Kansas right

like Houston. Um there's Kansas right here. Uh-oh, that's not good. It leads

here. Uh-oh, that's not good. It leads

to a 404 page error. Let's see if the Houston one works. So, this is their location page, and would you look at that? It's another long pillar page. So,

that? It's another long pillar page. So,

pillar pages are still in full effect in 2026. I also know that because some of

2026. I also know that because some of my websites still use a pillar page, and they are monetized, as well. But, um the only difference with this one is that they do have clickable listing pages.

So, they do have their own like individual page, but they also just kind of list it out like this. Super

straightforward directory. They're

absolutely dominating. I'm sure you can find something similar around like board game nights or something along those lines, but I know trivia has kind of been popping off. I know near me, some of my friends are like, "Let's go to

trivia night." So, anecdotal, but I know

trivia night." So, anecdotal, but I know it's really popular right now. So, the

fourth website is secondchanceapartments.com and this is a very interesting niche and directory that is kind of throwing me off a little bit and I'll explain. The

reason is because the directory itself is around second chance apartments, which I had to look up and it's basically finding apartments where the landlord accepts people with bad marks

on their record, challenging rental histories, bad credit, evictions, that kind of stuff. So, I thought this was going to be a really helpful directory that helps with second chance apartments, but when I observed and

looked under the hood, their website, first of all, looks bad. Yet, it's on Mediavine's traditional program. And

then they have these location pages here where if you click on any one of these location pages, it's this massive, almost blog article, but it's clearly AI-written. I mean, this is boilerplate

AI-written. I mean, this is boilerplate information. All of the location pages

information. All of the location pages kind of start with the same sentence and the same paragraph. You know, finding a new place to live is exciting, but it can be also incredibly stressful. All

right, let's just go click on another one here. Finding a place to live in San

one here. Finding a place to live in San Diego is tough. It's like every single one of these pages, there is the same thing. It's also not obvious that there

thing. It's also not obvious that there are any kind of listings where I can see any properties or rental properties that do offer second chance living. So, I

feel like it's more of a blog than a directory, but it's very much structured and built like a directory. There is

this form on the homepage where it says, "Let's find your perfect apartment."

This is what I thought monetization angle would be because if you think about it, this person who built this has found a very clever way to compete with a very competitive category, which is

kind of real estate or property management, that kind of stuff. Zillow,

Redfin, Trulia, all of these big directories kind of dominate this space, but they created a exact match domain and every single page has something to do with second chance apartments that

they've been able to successfully get a good amount of traffic. So, these are the stats. It's getting 700 monthly

the stats. It's getting 700 monthly organic visitors, which isn't a lot, and they've been on the downturn ever since June. But, this website is roughly 10

June. But, this website is roughly 10 months old, or at least it was admitted into Mediavine's program 10 months ago.

So, it's still pretty new. Uh hopefully

their traffic isn't falling off a cliff, which it looks like it is. But, they're

ranking for all of these types of keywords. Second chance rentals for sex

keywords. Second chance rentals for sex offenders near me, low competition, 150 monthly searches, but position one. No

credit check apartments Chicago, second chance landlords. Just looking at the

chance landlords. Just looking at the intent of the keywords, they're very strong intent keywords. They're buyer

intent keywords. So, the fact that this kind of unhelpful directory is ranking for these is shocking to me, but it's working, and there's probably not much content, not much competition, because

they're also a low DR. And it doesn't look like they have many backlinks, either. We'll double-check as another

either. We'll double-check as another measure. This is pretty close to having

measure. This is pretty close to having no backlinks, in my opinion. Their top

pages are those location pages. So,

Chicago Oklahoma Houston Minneapolis.

They don't get a lot of traffic. Doesn't

seem like anyone wanted to build it, and probably a gap in the market as far as what Zillow and Trulia and all those other big directories in real estate are targeting. If there's anything to learn

targeting. If there's anything to learn from this type of directory, it's definitely not the quality and the value and the usefulness of their content, but more so clever ways to enter a very

saturated and competitive niche. And I

think I've been a fan of this for a long time. You can do this with senior

time. You can do this with senior living, and probably a lot of very high competition lucrative niches. But, you

have to commit to going all in on a very specific underserved keyword and niche within the within the category.

Unfortunately, it does look like their traffic is just falling off a cliff. So,

it could just be Google not de-indexing, but just ranking them lower over time, or losing keywords even, because their content's not valuable enough. The

experience on this website is absolutely terrible. So, eventually that's going to

terrible. So, eventually that's going to catch up to you and if users can't even use your website, this kind of this kind of drop makes sense. So, the fifth and final directory that is 10 months old on

Raktive is going to be f1salaries.com.

Pretty straightforward. It talks about F1 driver salaries in 2026. And this is what the directory looks like. You can

sort by drivers and teams and staff.

Click on one of them. This is Lance Stroll salary and net worth in 2026. And

you can see all of these stats here, a little image, all the ads. I'm sure all of us at some point has typed in the net worth of a celebrity or famous person.

So, this is kind of cool to see. This is

getting 12.8k monthly visitors. Again,

this is about 10 months old as far as when it joined Raktive. So, it has to get a minimum of 25,000 page views per month, which I think is really reasonable. Especially in a niche like

reasonable. Especially in a niche like this, you have to imagine that if someone's interested in Lance Stroll's salary and net worth, they're probably interested in a bunch of other people

because why not? Why not click around and see 15 different pages. But here we can see it's a DR6, about a thousand keywords that they're ranking for. We

could probably guess what they're going to be. How much do F1 drivers make?

to be. How much do F1 drivers make?

Pretty low competition, 6,700 searches per month and they're ranking page one rank one for that query, which is good to see. A bunch of branded or not

to see. A bunch of branded or not branded keywords, but like individual name net worth keywords, which get a ton of search volume as well. The thing with this kind of niche is that I don't think you're going to get a lot of return

visitors. And here we can see that only

visitors. And here we can see that only 45% of their traffic is from the US.

They still have other tier one traffic, like UK, Canada, and Australia. So, the

majority is still solid tier one traffic, but I think it just comes with the territory with a niche like this.

Solid solid growth though. I mean, look at this. Just a massive spike up. Ahrefs

at this. Just a massive spike up. Ahrefs

doesn't show any organic competitors that seem to be doing the same thing. I

think it's a good beginner niche. I

don't know if I'd want to make like 30 of these. The opportunity with this one

of these. The opportunity with this one is pretty straightforward. I'm sure we can all pick off some adjacent niches where we could apply the same kind of directory model just in different sports

niches or just any celebrities perhaps.

I know there's some big websites probably around like how much Kim Kardashian is worth or whatever like these really really big celebrities. But

for other niches it might be untapped and the fact is this is working for F1 salaries probably true for cricket or some other like smaller sport perhaps.

So this could probably be applied many many times over just in different niches. So those are five different

niches. So those are five different directories less than a year old that hopefully gives you some inspiration and shows you how easy it is to rank, get traffic and monetize some of these directories. If you do want me to cover

directories. If you do want me to cover any other categories or types of directories like lead generation directories for example, which is another beast. I've started my research

another beast. I've started my research there. Then let me know.

there. Then let me know.

Otherwise I appreciate you watching.

Thanks so much for the support and I'll catch you guys in another video. See

you.