Dofollow vs nofollow links: what 126 startup directories actually give you

Nofollow links carry a rel="nofollow" attribute that tells search engines not to count the link as an endorsement, and a dofollow link is simply a link without that attribute. That one attribute decides whether a directory listing moves your Domain Rating by Ahrefs or only sends you visitors. Most guides stop at the definition. We went further and read the rel attribute on 391 real listings across the 126 startup directories we track, so this page can tell you which directories follow the link, which do not, and what it takes to change that.

Dofollow vs nofollow: the one-sentence difference

A followed link passes authority from the linking page to yours; a nofollow link does not. In HTML the two look like this:

<!-- followed: no rel, or only noopener / noreferrer -->
<a href="https://yourproduct.com">Visit website</a>

<!-- nofollow: search engines are told not to count it -->
<a href="https://yourproduct.com" rel="nofollow">Visit website</a>

Three things follow from this. First, there is no dofollow attribute. A link is followed by default, and “dofollow” is the SEO industry’s word for the absence of nofollow. We say followed link for that reason, and use the Dofollow label on directory pages because that is the word founders search for. Second, noopener and noreferrer are about browser security, not search, so a link with rel="noopener noreferrer" is still followed. Third, one directory in our sample, Submit AI Tools, literally writes rel="dofollow" on its links. Google ignores unknown values, so the link is followed, but not because of the attribute.

What we found on 126 startup directories

Of the 126 directories we track, 40 give a followed link on a standard listing, 82 give a nofollow link and 4 are mixed, checked 22 September 2026. Standard listing means the free or lowest tier a founder gets by filling in the form, not a paid or featured slot.

The split by cost matters more than the headline. Of the 40 followed-link directories, 5 are free, 16 are freemium, 13 are paid and 6 do not publish a price. And the strongest sites lean nofollow: 40 directories have a DR of 70 or more, and only 7 of those follow the link on a standard listing. The median DR of a followed-link directory is 53; the median of a nofollow one is 63. Authority and generosity with links do not travel together.

The full lists are on the dofollow directories page, which has all 40, and no badge required, which strips out the ones that want their logo on your site first.

Nofollow, ugc and sponsored are all hints

Google treats nofollow, ugc and sponsored the same way: as hints about how to weigh a link, not as commands. Google introduced ugc and sponsored on 10 September 2019 and moved all three from a directive to a hint for ranking on the same day, then for crawling and indexing on 1 March 2020. In practice a hint from a directory that marks every outbound link the same way is almost always taken, so for a founder the three values behave alike: no authority passes.

They do show up on real listings. Of the 391 links we sampled, 105 carried nofollow, 15 carried ugc across 6 directories, and 3 carried sponsored. Product Hunt and Peerlist Launchpad use plain rel="ugc" on the visit button, which is Google’s suggested value for user-submitted content. Capterra marks its sponsored placements rel="noopener sponsored". LaunchIgniter and HUNT0 put nofollow ugc on free listings and drop it for winners and paid launches, which is exactly how the attributes were designed to be used.

How to check whether a link is followed

Open the listing, right-click the link to your site, choose Inspect, and read the rel attribute on the <a> tag. That is the whole method, and it takes ten seconds. The rules:

• No rel, or only noopener, noreferrer or external: followed.
• Any of nofollow, ugc or sponsored: not followed for ranking purposes.
• Both, such as noopener noreferrer nofollow: not followed. The security values do not cancel the hint.

Then check the href, because a link with no nofollow can still pass nothing. Three patterns we hit repeatedly:

1. Redirects through the directory’s own domain. SourceForge sends every Visit Website button through an internal /software/link redirect with nofollow on it. Dang.ai links to l.dang.ai/<code>, which then 302s to the product. Toolfolio advertises a do-follow link on its $99 plan, and the anchor is indeed followed, but it points at a toolfolio.link short URL, not your domain.
2. Buttons that are not links. On Capterra the Visit Website control on a sponsored profile is a <button> that fires an ad-click event. Unclaimed free profiles have no outbound control at all. On G2 it is a POST form to a click-recording endpoint. Neither is a crawlable link, on free or paid profiles.
3. Links that appear only after a condition is met. AlternativeTo followed the link on a popular listing and nofollowed two with few likes. Hacker News strips nofollow from a Show HN story link once the post passes a points threshold that is not published.

For a second opinion, the Backlinks report in Ahrefs shows a Nofollow tag on each link, and the free Domain Rating checker tells you whether the followed ones have started to register.

Directories that follow the link only after a badge, a payment or a vote

61 of the 82 nofollow directories publish a route to a followed link; 21 do not. The routes overlap, and most directories offer more than one:

• A paid tier: 54 of the 63 directories with a documented route accept money for it, from $4.90 at the bottom to $197 a month at the top. The common shape is a $9–$39 one-time premium launch that guarantees the followed link and skips the review queue.
• Their badge on your site: 36 routes involve embedding the directory’s badge, usually on your homepage or footer, and keeping it there. 41 directories require a badge for something, and 34 of those are nofollow until it is verified. The badge is itself a followed link back to them, so this is a link exchange with extra steps.
• A ranking or vote: 27 routes depend on finishing in a weekly or daily top 3, clearing an upvote score, or keeping a listing popular. You cannot schedule these, which is why the rank plan does not count on them.

Concrete examples: Startup Fame (DR 84) follows the link on the free Verified plan while its badge is live on your homepage. twelve.tools (DR 82) wants a backlink to them on your homepage or footer, or $36 for Pro with no backlink. Uneed (DR 76) follows for an upvote score of 20 on launch day or $29.99 to skip the line. Indie Hackers (DR 81) nofollows the product page but follows links inside product updates you post, which costs nothing but a paragraph.

Seven of the 40 followed-link directories also require a badge, Fazier and Findly.tools among them, so a badge is not a sign the link is worthless. It is a sign to read the terms before you embed it.

What nofollow links are still good for

A nofollow link sends visitors, gets a new site crawled sooner, and makes a link profile look normal; it just does not move Domain Rating. That is a real return from the strongest sites in the set. Product Hunt drew 437,837 estimated monthly visits and G2 2,243,457 at the time we checked, and every link from both is nofollow or not a link at all.

Three concrete uses:

• Traffic and sign-ups. A DR 91 nofollow listing in front of buyers beats a DR 30 followed link on a page nobody reads, if what you need this month is users.
• Indexing. Googlebot follows nofollow links as a hint for crawling too. A new domain linked from Hacker News, Product Hunt and a handful of directories gets discovered in days instead of weeks.
• Brand and reviews. Buyers search “yourproduct reviews” and land on G2 and Capterra. An empty profile there costs you more than the missing link.

The mistake is counting them toward authority. Keep two columns in your tracking sheet: followed links from distinct domains, and everything else.

How followed links move Domain Rating

Domain Rating by Ahrefs counts only followed links, weights each linking domain by its own DR, and counts each domain once. Nofollow, ugc and sponsored links are excluded from the calculation entirely. Two things follow for a founder working through directories:

1. Distinct domains beat repeat links. Twenty followed links from one directory count roughly once. Ten followed links from ten different directories is ten.
2. A followed link from a DR 50 directory does more than a nofollow link from a DR 91 platform. The second does nothing for DR at all, however much traffic it sends.

A fresh domain sits at DR 0–5. Ten followed links from distinct DR 60+ domains is enough to lift it into double digits, and Ahrefs takes one to three weeks to pick a new listing up. Of the 40 followed-link directories we track, 33 need no badge, and 21 are free or freemium. Check your starting number with the Domain Rating checker, do the listings, and check again a month later, not daily.

When to use nofollow on your own site

Nofollow a link when you would not vouch for the page or you were paid to place it; leave every other link, and all internal links, followed. Google’s own values for the three cases:

• rel="sponsored" for ads, paid placements and affiliate links.
• rel="ugc" for links in comments, forum posts and user profiles.
• rel="nofollow" for anything else you do not want to endorse.

Adding nofollow to internal links does not help. It stops authority flowing between your own pages and gives nothing back. A directory badge you agreed to place is a special case: the terms almost always require the badge link to be followed, and the bot that verifies it reads the rel attribute the same way you did above.

What to do next

1. Check three of your existing listings with the Inspect method above. If a listing you counted as a backlink turns out to be nofollow or a redirect, move it to the other column.
2. Start with the 33 followed-link directories that need no badge, free ones first, and submit to the ten that fit your product.
3. For the badge-gated and paid ones, read the unlock terms on each directory page before you embed anything or pay.
4. The free rank plan reads your site, scores all 126 directories against it and puts the followed-link ones that fit at the top, with the listing text ready to paste.