Every launch site promises you a backlink. Fewer of them say what kind.
I wanted to know what you actually get, so on 10 October 2026 I opened a live listing page on 24 launch and directory sites and read the rel attribute on the link that points at the listed product. Nothing fancy, just the HTML the server sends.
Disclosure up front: I run yourhack.ai, which is one of the sites in the comparison. Our own listing links are nofollow by default and turn followed when you link back or pay, so I'm not pretending to be neutral, just showing my working.
What I found
On the 23 sites where I could read the markup:
- 13 served a plain, followed link on the listing I opened
-
9 used
rel="nofollow" -
1 used
rel="ugc"(Product Hunt, from my July check; it blocked my requests this time)
The more interesting part is how many "dofollow" promises come with a condition attached:
| Site | Free link | The condition |
|---|---|---|
| DevHunt | nofollow | Their FAQ: "Links on free listings are nofollow; paid launches get a permanent dofollow link." |
| Uneed | followed, conditional | Free plan ties the dofollow link to an upvote score of 20 |
| OpenHunts | nofollow on 2 of 3 listings | "Dofollow backlink if top 3" on the free tier |
| Open Launch | nofollow | Free tier lists two conditions for dofollow: a top 3 daily ranking and displaying their badge |
| TinyLaunch | followed on the pages I opened | Free tier promises a backlink only for top 3 products |
| Peerlist Launchpad | couldn't read it (client-rendered) | Their FAQ: only the top 5 projects of the week get a backlink |
| Show HN | mostly nofollow | 27 of 29 titles on /shownew were nofollow; the one I opened from /show was not |
| Fazier | followed on paid launches | Free tier requires a link back to Fazier on your site |
So "free dofollow backlink" very often means "free, if you win, pay, or link back". That's a fair trade, it just isn't the headline.
Check it yourself in 10 seconds
Open your listing, view source, and search for your domain. Or from a terminal:
curl -sL "https://example-directory.com/your-listing" \
| grep -oiE '<a [^>]*yourdomain\.com[^>]*>'
If the tag has nofollow, ugc or sponsored in its rel, search engines are asked not to count it as an endorsement. No rel, or only noopener / noreferrer, means it's followed.
Two gotchas I hit:
- Some sites render links with JavaScript, so the HTML from curl has no link at all. Crawlers often see the same thing on their first pass.
-
Redirect links. One site's "View tool" button points at its own short link that 302s to you with a
?ref=tag. The anchor itself had no nofollow, but it isn't a direct link to your domain.
A free checker, because I got tired of doing this by hand
I turned the check into a small free tool: Dofollow Backlink Checker. Paste the page that links to you plus your domain, and it lists every link to your site with its anchor text and rel, and flags pages that are noindex or nofollow as a whole.
Two siblings came out of the same work, for the day before you launch:
- Social Preview Checker: how your link card looks on X, LinkedIn, Facebook and Slack, and which Open Graph tags are missing
- Launch Readiness Checker: HTTPS, title, meta description, share image, favicon, viewport, H1, noindex, canonical and server response time, with a fix for each miss
The full comparison of all 25 sites (cost, account, link type and stated review time, with every URL I opened) is here: Where to submit your startup: Product Hunt alternatives compared.
The takeaway
A backlink from a launch site is a bonus, not the point. The same human visitors click a nofollow link as a followed one. Pick the two or three sites whose audience overlaps with your users, write a real description for each, and then check what you got instead of trusting the pricing page.
Top comments (2)
Thought‑provoking read. It’s easy to assume submitting your startup to launch directories automatically grants valuable dofollow backlinks. This hands‑on audit reveals fine‑print conditions, JavaScript‑rendering and redirect tricks that often nullify expected SEO benefits. Always verify the actual HTML after listing your project.
tr.ee/dev-to