Nobody Is Coming to Find Your App. Here Is How I Am Making Sure They Do.

Shipping an app feels like the finish line. It is actually the starting gun, and most indie apps never hear it fire.

I build Power Leveling by Noland, a free Android fitness logger for lifting, running and intervals. It turns your squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press, 400 m sprint and 5K into a single Power Level score that tops out at 30,000. It has powerlifting and military scoring modes, a Tabata timer that reads heart rate zones through Health Connect, a friends feed, and it runs in English, Spanish and French. It is on Google Play only. Here is the playbook I am using to get it seen, with what the sources actually say.

1. Get indexed by more than one search engine

Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and in Bing Webmaster Tools. The second one matters more than most devs think, but the popular claim that "ChatGPT search just pulls from Bing" is too simple.

What OpenAI publicly says: ChatGPT search "sometimes partners with other search providers," and its help docs name Microsoft (Bing) and Shopify. For Enterprise and Edu workspaces, Bing is the only third party search provider. OpenAI also runs its own crawler, OAI SearchBot, and states that sites opted out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. An August 2026 Search Engine Land study went further and found OpenAI has its own index that overlaps very little with Bing's top results, while paid "thinking" searches leaned heavily on scraped Google results. That study is one measurement of a fast changing system, so treat it as a snapshot.

So the practical move for nolandsoftware.web.app: be in Google, be in Bing, and allow OAI SearchBot in robots.txt. Then add IndexNow, an open protocol that pings Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver, Yep and others when a page changes. Google does not participate, so keep your sitemap fresh for Google.

1. Use launch platforms for the spike

Product Hunt. Every launch goes live at 12:01 a.m. Pacific, which gives you the full 24 hour day. Product Hunt's own guide asks for a tagline (60 characters max), a short description, gallery images or GIFs, a demo video and a genuine maker comment telling the story. The common "launch Tuesday to Thursday" advice is folk wisdom; Product Hunt's guide says to pick a day you can be present and your audience is online. For Power Leveling, my gallery leads with a Power Level score climbing toward 30,000, because that is the hook.

AlternativeTo. List Power Leveling as an alternative to Strong, Hevy, StrengthLog, JEFIT and StrongLifts. People land there already searching for a replacement, which is exactly the intent you want.

Hacker News, Show HN. The rules are specific: it must be something people can try, you must be around to discuss it, no landing pages, and no asking friends to upvote. HN cares about the how, so my angle is the scoring system: how six very different events get normalized into one number, and how powerlifting and military modes weight them.

Indie Hackers. Less a launch pad, more a place to share the build story and the numbers honestly.

BetaList. Heads up: it is no longer free. Its FAQ says all submissions are paid, refunded if not selected, and it does not accept direct app store links, so you need your own domain landing page.

1. Directories: cheap, slow, cumulative

I am listing Power Leveling on SaaSHub, Uneed, Fazier, Peerlist, MicroLaunch, Smol Launch, MobileAppDaily, AppBrain, and a free Crunchbase profile. Each one is a few minutes of work and a permanent page with your name on it. The classic app review sites like AppAdvice and 148Apps lean iOS, so they are low priority for an Android only app.

1. Go where your users already argue about squats

Reddit is where lifters actually talk: r/powerlifting, r/weightroom, r/fitness, r/androidapps, r/SideProject. But read the rules first. r/Fitness bans self promotion outright, apps included, and bans can be permanent. r/weightroom mods remove posts that do not fit. r/androidapps and r/SideProject are friendlier to makers sharing their work. The honest path is to be a useful member first and mention the app only where it genuinely answers a question, with disclosure.

Beyond Reddit: powerlifting forums, military fitness communities (the military scoring mode in Power Leveling is built for people prepping for a fitness test), and X, where building in public gives people a reason to follow along.

1. What actually moves the needle

Real Play reviews. Ask happy users at a natural moment, never fake or incentivize them.

ASO on Google Play. The app name is capped at 30 characters, the short description at 80, the full description at 4,000. Google's own policy says no words like "Free" or "#1" in the title, and no keyword stuffing, which can get an app suspended. That is why the listing reads "Power Leveling by Noland" and the short description sells the benefit. Screenshots should show the score, the Tabata timer with heart rate zones, and the friends feed, localized for Spanish and French.

A clean landing page. One clear sentence, real screenshots, a Google Play button, and fast load. It is also what BetaList, Show HN and every directory link back to.

Social proof. Attributed quotes, review counts, a Product Hunt badge. Google's listing guidelines specifically say not to use unattributed testimonials.

The counterpoint: none of this is magic

Launch day spikes fade. A great Product Hunt day can turn into a quiet Tuesday a week later. Most directories send a trickle of visitors, not a flood. The SEO value of directory backlinks is debated, and plenty of those links count for little. Reddit can ban you for one wrong post. Even the AI search story is shifting month to month, as the conflicting studies show.

What compounds is the boring stuff: a listing that converts, reviews that build trust, and a product people tell their gym friends about. Visibility gets someone to the Play page. Power Leveling still has to earn the install.

1. My launch order

Landing page live, sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, IndexNow on, OAI SearchBot allowed.

Play listing tuned: title, short description, localized screenshots.

Directories and AlternativeTo, spread over a couple of weeks.

Product Hunt, with the gallery, demo and maker comment ready in advance.

Show HN a few days later with the scoring system writeup.

Ongoing: Indie Hackers updates, community participation, X, and asking real users for reviews.

That is the plan for Power Leveling. I will share what actually works.

What is the one channel that got your app its first hundred real users?

Originally posted on X: https://x.com/ArgileNoland/status/2113942598041686406