Launch your product on twenty directories and you'll collect twenty backlinks. Sounds like an SEO win.
Most of them are worth nothing. Here's why, and how to check in ten seconds.
A backlink is a vote. Nofollow is an abstention.
When one site links to another, search engines read it as a vote of confidence: this page is worth your attention. Enough votes, and you rank higher.
rel="nofollow" makes the link say "don't count this vote." It still works for humans — people can click through — but it passes no ranking credit to your site. For SEO purposes, it's decoration.
Why directories love nofollow
Directories get spammed. Thousands of submissions, plenty of them junk. So most of them do the safe thing: every outbound link on the site gets rel="nofollow" automatically.
The result: their "get listed, boost your SEO" pitch is empty. You get the listing, whatever traffic comes with it, and zero ranking credit. Sometimes you're paying for it — with money, or with a backlink badge on your own homepage — in exchange for a vote that was never cast.
Some directories are honest about this. Many aren't. The marketing page says "dofollow backlink"; the actual listing page says rel="nofollow". Always check the page, not the pitch.
How to check in ten seconds
Open a listing page, view the page source, and search for the listed site's domain. Find the <a> tag pointing at it:
-
<a href="https://yoursite.com" rel="nofollow">— worthless for SEO -
<a href="https://yoursite.com">— a real vote
If you see nofollow, sponsored, or ugc in that rel attribute, the link passes no ranking credit. Google treats all three as "don't count this."
What we do instead
Every DebutPin listing links out to the maker's site as a dofollow link. No rel="nofollow" on the way out — view-source any product page and see for yourself.
Why: it's reciprocal. Our free tier asks makers to put a dofollow link back to DebutPin on their own site. You give us ranking credit; we give it back. A one-way deal would be us taxing your SEO for nothing.
One honest caveat: a backlink helps, but nobody can promise you rankings or traffic — not us, not anyone. Anyone selling a guaranteed position is selling something they can't deliver. What we can promise is simpler: the link we give you is a real vote, not an abstention.
The short version
Before you submit anywhere for "SEO value":
- Check an existing listing's page source for
rel="nofollow"on outbound links. - If it's nofollow, value the listing for traffic and community only — not SEO.
- Never trade a dofollow link from your own homepage for a nofollow link back. That's a bad trade.
Submit your product, get a real link. That's the whole pitch.
Top comments (1)
런칭 디렉터리의 홍보 문구보다 실제 상품 페이지의 rel 속성을 확인하자는 점이 실무적입니다. 다만 링크 유형만으로 채널 가치를 결론 내리기보다, 목록에서 실제로 들어온 방문·가입·문의를 분리해 기록하면 좋겠어요. 홈페이지에 상호 링크를 붙이기 전에는 그 디렉터리의 방문자가 우리 제품의 대상 고객인지부터 확인할 것 같습니다.