Field notes
How to Check Directory Backlink Quality: Six Checks Beyond DR
How to check if a directory backlink is worth it: six checks beyond DR, how to read rel attributes, and what we found inspecting nearly 500 live listings on 22 sites, where promised dofollow links often weren't.
To check whether a directory backlink is worth having, look past Domain Rating. (1) Does the directory get real traffic? Under about 1,000 visits a month is a red flag. (2) Are its listing pages indexed in Google? (3) What's the link attribute on a live listing: dofollow, nofollow, ugc or sponsored? (4) Is it relevant to your buyers? (5) Does it have any editorial standard, or does it accept everything? (6) Is the price justified by the above? In our catalog of 394 directories, 58% get under 10,000 visits a month, so high DR alone means little.
Below: each check step by step, how to inspect the link, and what our catalog data shows.
What we found when we checked nearly 500 live listings
Promises about "dofollow backlinks" are easy to make. In October 2026 we opened live listings on 22 directories and launch platforms (about 490 pages in total) and inspected the actual link to the product's website. The gap between what sites say and what they serve is the best argument for running check 3 yourself.
| Site | What it says | What we found on live listings |
|---|---|---|
| Launch Llama | Dofollow on every published listing | nofollow until about 20 upvotes, on every plan (50 listings) |
| StartupBase | Permanent dofollow (Premium) | 15 of 18 listings nofollow |
| TinyLaunch | Free top 3 or Premium | Recent launches followed, older free launches nofollow (15) |
| DevHunt | Paid launches dofollow | 9 of 20 followed, matching paid vs free |
| Uneed | Score of 20 on the free line | All 15 followed, including some under 20 |
| Fazier | Guaranteed on Premium | All 35 recent listings followed |
| PeerPush | Permanent link | 39 of 40 followed, free and paid |
| mcp.so | Dofollow on paid submissions | All 12 newest pages followed |
| Smithery | – | Repo and homepage links followed |
| Hacker News | – | nofollow under ~10 points, followed on every post with 20+ (228 posts) |
| Product Hunt | – | ugc |
| Peerlist, Glama | – | ugc nofollow |
| Crunchbase, F6S, Alternative.me | – | nofollow (software pages) |
| SoftwareSuggest | – | Only sponsored nofollow ad links |
| SaaS Browser | – | nofollow internal redirect |
| G2, SaaSworthy, SourceForge business listings | – | No clickable link to the vendor |
| TrustRadius | – | Followed CTA buttons on paid profiles only |
Four lessons from doing this:
- Check after the launch window, not on launch day. Several launch platforms change the link once the week or leaderboard closes.
- Check someone else's listing before you pay. Pick a product that launched a few weeks ago on the plan you're considering.
- The big review sites aren't link sources. G2, SaaSworthy and SourceForge's business directory didn't link to the vendor at all on the pages we checked.
- Look for tracking parameters. Many launch platforms add
?ref=to your link. It doesn't change link value, but it tells you how to find their traffic in analytics.
DR and traffic don't always travel together
Across 387 directories, the correlation between DR and (log) traffic was only 0.36, and 15 of the 71 directories with DR 70+ had under 10,000 visits a month. That's why check 1 comes before DR.
1. Real traffic
Use a third-party traffic estimate (SimilarWeb, Ahrefs or Semrush). Rough guide from our catalog:
| Monthly visits | Directories in our catalog | Read as |
|---|---|---|
| 1M+ | 12 | Major platforms |
| 100K–1M | 46 | Strong |
| 10K–100K | 106 | Useful if relevant |
| 1K–10K | 149 | Mostly for the link |
| Under 1K | 74 | Usually skip, unless very niche |
Be wary of a directory's own traffic claims. We've seen sites advertise 10–20 times their third-party traffic (example).
2. Indexed listing pages
Search Google for site:directory.com "a product listed there". If listing pages don't appear, your listing won't either, and its link carries less weight.
3. The link attribute
Open a live listing (yours or another product's), right-click the link to the product's website, and choose Inspect. Look at the rel attribute:
| rel | Meaning |
|---|---|
(none) or noopener/noreferrer only |
Followed (dofollow) |
nofollow |
A hint not to pass ranking credit |
ugc |
User-generated content |
sponsored |
Paid placement |
Also check whether the link goes directly to your site or through a redirect (/go?url=, /out/, or SaaS Browser's /en/visit/…). Redirected links are often weaker, and usually nofollow as well. The quickest way to inspect is to use the browser console on the listing page: [...document.querySelectorAll('a')].filter(a=>a.href.includes('yourdomain')).map(a=>a.rel) lists the rel of every link to you. In our catalog, among directories where we've confirmed the link type, 53% are dofollow, 26% mixed and 21% nofollow.
4. Relevance
Does it list products like yours, for people like your buyers? A small directory of developer tools is worth more to a dev tool than a giant general one.
5. Editorial standard
Signs of a link farm: it accepts anything instantly, has thousands of near-empty listings, sells "100 directories for $X", or ranks for nothing. A directory that rejects some submissions is a better neighbourhood.
6. Price vs value
The median one-time paid listing in our catalog is $24.50. Pay when traffic, indexing, relevance and link type all check out. Skip bulk bundles of unknown sites.
A note on safety
Google's guidelines treat links bought to manipulate rankings as link spam, and a paid link should carry rel="sponsored". Directories that list and review products, with real users, are normal parts of a launch. Treat any directory link as discovery first and an SEO bonus second.
A worked example: three directories
| Directory A | Directory B | Directory C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DR | 78 | 52 | 71 |
| Monthly visits | 600 | 45,000 | 210,000 |
| Listing pages indexed | No | Yes | Yes |
| Link | dofollow | dofollow | nofollow |
| Relevant to a dev tool | General | Developer tools only | General software |
| Price | $49 | Free | Free |
| Verdict | Skip: high DR, no traffic, not indexed | Submit first | Submit for referrals and discovery, not the link |
Directory A looks best on DR and is the worst choice. That pattern is common: our catalog has many directories with DR in the 60s and 70s and only a few hundred visits a month.
Red flags at a glance
- "Get listed on 100+ directories" bundles of unnamed sites
- DR far higher than traffic would suggest
- Instant acceptance of anything, including obvious spam
- Listing pages that are just a link and a logo, with no description or reviews
- The directory itself ranks for nothing in Google
Related
- Dofollow directories for startups
- Domain Rating vs Domain Authority
- Why DR isn't increasing after backlinks
- AgentLaunch's directory catalog, which shows DR, monthly traffic and observed link type for every directory, so you can run these checks at a glance
FAQ
How do I know if a directory backlink is good? Check real traffic, indexed listings, the link attribute, relevance, editorial standards and price, not just DR.
How do I check if a link is dofollow?
Inspect the link on the live listing. No nofollow, ugc or sponsored in rel means it's followed.
Are directory backlinks bad for SEO? Not when the directory has real users and lists products editorially. Mass submissions to low-quality link farms are the problem.
Do launch platforms keep the dofollow link forever?
Not always. In our October 2026 checks, TinyLaunch's older free launches outside the top 3 were nofollow, and Launch Llama's links only became followed at about 20 upvotes. Re-check a week or two after launch.
Do G2 and Capterra give backlinks? Not useful ones. The G2 profile we checked had no clickable link to the vendor. Review sites are for buyers, not links.