Where to Submit Your Startup for Real Backlinks (and What to Avoid)

A dofollow link is the default <a href> with no special attributes; it can pass ranking signal (PageRank) to your domain. A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow" (or rel="sponsored" / rel="ugc"), which tells Google not to pass that signal. Since 2019 Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a strict rule, but the practical takeaway holds: dofollow links from relevant sites move rankings, nofollow links mostly drive traffic, brand recognition, and a natural-looking profile. You want both, and you should never pay for a dofollow link without checking it is actually dofollow.

Domain Authority (Moz) and Domain Rating (Ahrefs) are third-party 0 to 100 scores that estimate a domain's link strength. Google does not use them, so treat them as a rough proxy, not a target. They are also logarithmic: climbing from DR 20 to DR 30 is routine, while DR 70 to DR 80 takes years. A DR 90 nofollow link from Product Hunt and a DR 35 dofollow link from a niche dev directory do different jobs, and neither one alone changes your ranking.

Check the link yourself before trusting any list that claims "dofollow". On your published listing, right-click your link, choose Inspect, and read the <a> tag for a rel attribute. A free browser extension like NoFollow highlights them on the page in one click. Do this for every paid placement; statuses change quietly and stale blog posts will lie to you.

Launch platforms drive traffic and trigger secondary coverage, even when their own outbound links are nofollow. Product Hunt (DR ~91) and Hacker News "Show HN" (DR ~90) both use nofollow outbound links, but a strong launch sends thousands of visitors in a day and frequently gets picked up by newsletters and blogs that do link dofollow. Indie Hackers (DR ~78) is similar: nofollow, but real founders read it. Plan these for a day you can actually sit and reply to comments, because engagement is what surfaces you.

Evergreen software directories are where buyers search by intent and where you rank for "[competitor] alternatives". G2 (DR ~91), Capterra (DR ~90), AlternativeTo (DR ~88), and SaaSHub (DR ~70) carry nofollow profile links, so the value is qualified referral traffic and category visibility, not link equity. Crunchbase (DR ~92) is also nofollow, but it anchors your brand entity and tends to appear in your branded search results, which matters for credibility and for Google's understanding of who you are.

Smaller indie directories (Uneed, Fazier, Microlaunch, TinyLaunch, BetaList, Startup Stash, Launching Next, PitchWall) vary widely. Some offer a genuine dofollow homepage link, often as a paid perk; others are nofollow or have gone thin. BetaList, for example, has a slow free queue (often weeks) and a paid skip around the low three figures. Do not pay on reputation alone. Verify the rel attribute on a recent live listing, glance at whether the directory is curated or accepts everything, and skip any that are buried in casino or crypto spam.

The best links are editorial: someone chose to cite you. Publishing a genuinely useful technical post on Dev.to (DR ~88) lets you include a dofollow link in context, and a good one gets reshared. Getting your project into a relevant GitHub "awesome-X" list is one of the most underrated dofollow sources for dev tools, because those READMEs are widely scraped and re-linked. Building a small free tool or open-sourcing a component gives other people a concrete reason to link to you without being asked.

Answer journalist and creator requests through Featured.com or Connectively (the platforms that replaced HARO). A single quoted answer can land a dofollow link from a real publication, which outweighs dozens of directory tiles. Keep responses short, specific, and quotable. Two thoughtful pitches a week is a sustainable pace and compounds over a quarter.

Keep your brand name and a single one-sentence description identical across every profile. This consistency helps search engines connect the dots into one entity and strengthens your branded results. Track everything in Google Search Console plus an Ahrefs or free backlink checker so you can see which submissions actually produced an indexed, live link rather than assuming they did.

Skip the "submit to 500 directories" gigs on Fiverr and the bulk-submission tools. These point you at link farms and auto-generated pages, exactly the pattern Google's link spam systems (SpamBrain) are built to neutralize. At best the links are ignored; at worst the unnatural spike contributes to a profile that looks manipulated. A handful of relevant, real listings beats hundreds of junk ones every time.

Avoid buying dofollow links that should be marked sponsored, and avoid reciprocal schemes where a directory forces you to add their badge or footer link to get listed. Both violate Google's guidelines. Also walk away from any directory whose index is full of gambling, crypto-pump, or "SEO express" review spam; you do not want your brand sitting in that neighborhood, and a link from there carries no weight. As a real example, the recovered domain behind codenation.dev had to disavow exactly this kind of casino and crypto PBN spam from its old history.

Be wary of directories with zero editorial review. If anything gets listed instantly with no human check, the listing is cheap to obtain and cheap in value, which is precisely why search engines discount it.

A curated directory earns its place by saying no. Because listings are reviewed and the index is not bloated with spam, a link from one reads more like an editorial citation than a free-for-all submission. For a developer-focused SaaS, a directory in the same topical bucket (developer tools and software) also gives you category-relevant referral traffic and a chance to appear in "best of" collections that can rank on their own.

Be realistic about the link equity. codenation.dev is a young, recovering domain at roughly DR 16, so the raw ranking signal from a single listing is modest, and any directory that promises otherwise is overselling. The honest value here is relevance, a clean neighborhood, real founder traffic, and inclusion in curated roundups, not a magic DR boost. Treat it as one good tile in a mosaic.

Set expectations accordingly: no single directory link moves your rankings. A healthy first quarter looks like roughly 25 to 40 relevant referring domains assembled from a mix of evergreen software directories, one or two real launches, a few editorial links you earned, and a small set of curated, category-specific directories. That blend looks natural because it is, and it is what actually compounds.

Week 1, lock in your entity. Claim Crunchbase, your LinkedIn company page, and your GitHub org, and ship structured data on your own site. Use the exact same brand name and one-line description everywhere so search engines read you as a single entity.

Week 2, cover the high-intent directories: G2, Capterra, AlternativeTo, and SaaSHub. These are nofollow, but they are where buyers compare options and where you start ranking for alternative-to queries.

Week 3, run one real launch (Product Hunt or Show HN) on a day you can babysit it, then repurpose the story into a Dev.to or blog post with a contextual dofollow link. Week 4, submit to 10 to 15 curated, category-relevant directories such as codenation.dev for dev tools and SaaS, pitch two or three GitHub awesome-X lists, and answer two Featured.com queries. Aim for 25 to 40 relevant referring domains over the quarter, and verify each link is live and indexed instead of trusting the confirmation email.