# Do Directory Backlinks Still Help SEO in 2026? Source: https://faslaunch.com/blog/do-directory-backlinks-still-help-seo Author: Avinash, Founder @ FasLaunch (https://x.com/avi11x) Published: 2026-09-27 Updated: 2026-09-27 Category: Product Launch Tags: Backlinks, SEO, Domain Rating, Startup Directories, Dofollow > Yes, directory backlinks can still help SEO in 2026, but only some of them. A link helps when it is dofollow, sits on a page Google has actually indexed, and comes from a site relevant to yours. A link does nothing when the listing page is never crawled, or when the link is nofollow on a site with little real traffic. Check the page, not just the domain, before you count on it. Someone in r/SideProject asked which startup directories are still worth submitting to. Buried in the replies was a sharper question: do these links even move the needle for SEO anymore, or is directory submission a 2018 habit nobody has updated? I run a directory myself, and I track Domain Rating, cost and link type across 142 platforms, so I have both the data and a reason to be honest about it. Short answer: yes, some directory backlinks still help. Most of the value or the waste comes down to one thing you can check in under a minute, and I'll show you how. ## Do backlinks from startup directories still help SEO? Some do, and some do nothing at all. The gap between the two is not the directory's fame or its Domain Rating. It's whether your specific listing page actually made it into Google's index, and whether the link on it is dofollow. A backlink only helps if two things are both true: 1. **The page carrying it is indexed.** If Google has never crawled or stored your listing page, the link on it is invisible to Google, no matter what the HTML says. 2. **The link passes credit.** A dofollow link tells Google "we vouch for this." A nofollow link tells Google not to count that vote, though Google still reads it as a hint of what a page is about. Miss either one, and the backlink is decoration, not SEO. Get both, and you have a small, real signal working for you every day the listing stays up. ## Why do so many directory links do nothing? Because most directories publish far more pages than Google is willing to crawl and store. Think about what a typical directory looks like: thousands of listing pages, most with a two-line description nobody wrote carefully, near-identical layouts, and almost no unique content beyond a name and a URL. Google's crawler has a budget for every site, and thin, repetitive pages are exactly what gets skipped or dropped from the index after the first crawl. So the directory's own homepage might have a strong Domain Rating. That doesn't mean your one listing page, buried under "recently added," ever gets indexed. The DR you see quoted is a property of the whole domain, not a promise about your specific page. ## How do you check if your listing page is actually indexed? Search Google for the exact address of your listing page. Type `site:` followed by your listing's exact URL, for example `site:example-directory.com/products/your-product`. If it shows up, Google has it. If nothing comes back, that page isn't in the index right now, and the link on it is doing nothing for you, whatever it says in the HTML. Do this for a handful of your directory listings once a quarter. It takes a few minutes and tells you more than any Domain Rating number does. Drop the directories that fail, and don't resubmit to them next time. ## Does a dofollow link matter more than a nofollow one? For ranking credit, yes. For everything else, less than people think. A dofollow link is a small vote of confidence passed from one site to another. It's part of what search engines use to judge how trustworthy and relevant your site is. A nofollow link carries an attribute that tells search engines not to pass that vote. But nofollow isn't the dead end it used to be. Google changed its stance in 2020: nofollow is now treated as a hint, not a strict instruction. A nofollow link can still get your page crawled, and if the directory sends real visitors, it still brings people to your site, brand mentions, and occasionally someone who links to you properly later. It just won't pass ranking credit the way a dofollow link does. So don't skip a strong, relevant directory just because its link is nofollow. Skip it if the page is never indexed and it sends no real visitors, because then neither the SEO value nor the traffic value is there. Across the 142 platforms I track, **104 give a dofollow link** and **36 give nofollow**, with a handful mixed depending on where the link sits. That split roughly matches what I'd expect across any broad set of directories: most will give you the real link if you ask, a meaningful minority won't, and price has surprisingly little to do with which. ## What does an indexed listing look like next to one that isn't? Picture two directories you submit the same product to on the same day. **Directory A** gives your listing its own URL, a real description you wrote, a screenshot, and a link from its homepage or a category page that already gets traffic. Search `site:` plus that exact URL a week later, and it shows up. The dofollow link on it is now doing real work. **Directory B** auto-generates a page from a form you filled in, buries it three levels deep with no internal link pointing to it from anywhere else on the site, and moves on to the next submission an hour later. Run the same `site:` search, and nothing comes back, not that week, not a month later. The link is still sitting there in the HTML. Google has simply never gone to look at it. Same effort on your end, submitted the same day, completely different outcome. The difference wasn't the directory's overall size or its homepage's Domain Rating. It was whether that one page gave a crawler any reason to visit and keep it. This is exactly why checking the page beats trusting the domain. A directory can be entirely legitimate and still produce listings that never get indexed, simply because it publishes faster than any crawler can keep up with. ## Does the directory's own Domain Rating matter? It matters, but as a filter, not a guarantee. A link from a site with DR 80 generally carries more weight than one from a site with DR 10, all else equal. That's why I show live Domain Rating next to every platform in the FasLaunch database. Of the 142 platforms, the median Domain Rating is 74, and 87 sit at DR 70 or higher. That's a strong set to choose from. But DR describes the whole domain's backlink profile, built up by its highest-traffic pages, usually the homepage and a few flagship articles. Your listing, three clicks deep in a directory structure, inherits none of that automatically. Use DR to shortlist which directories are worth your time. Then check the actual listing page before you count the link as real SEO value. I've watched this play out directly. A client of mine was stuck at Domain Rating 9 for a year and a half. A few carefully chosen, paid directory submissions moved him to DR 30 in a single month, because we picked directories where the listing pages were genuinely indexed and dofollow, not just directories with an impressive homepage number. I wrote the full story, along with a second case where one of my own products went from DR 0 to 45+ in five months, in [are startup directories worth it in 2026](/blog/are-startup-directories-worth-it). ## What makes a directory link low quality, even when it's technically dofollow? A few patterns show up again and again: - **The listing page is thin.** A one-line auto-generated description with no unique content is exactly what search engines learn to skip over. - **The directory links to literally everything.** Casinos, pharmacies, and startups all in the same unmoderated list looks like a link farm, not a curated resource. - **It asks for a reciprocal link back.** Trading links this way is one of the patterns Google's own guidance on link schemes calls out directly. - **Nothing else links to the directory itself.** If a directory has no real audience and no one else references it, its own pages struggle to earn a place in the index in the first place. None of these show up in a Domain Rating number. All of them show up the moment you check whether your specific page is indexed. ## So is directory submission still worth it for SEO in 2026? Yes, for the subset that passes the two checks. No, as a strategy on its own. A handful of dofollow links from indexed, relevant pages are a small, cheap, real signal, especially for a brand-new site with almost no backlink history yet. They won't out-rank a competitor with years of earned links and real content. They will help a search engine discover your new site faster, and start building the trust that better content and real mentions compound on top of later. Treat directory links as a foundation layer, not a finish line. Submit to a short list where you've actually verified the page gets indexed. Skip the rest, and let the full [platform database](/platforms) do the shortlisting for you: it's the same list of 142, sorted live by Domain Rating. ## Where can you get a real, indexed, dofollow listing? That's the exact problem I built [FasLaunch](/submit) to solve for founders launching something new. Every product gets its own real page, not a one-line auto-generated entry: who it's for, the problem it solves, how it solves it, and what makes it different, the same substance that gives a page a reason to get indexed in the first place. You can launch for free by adding our badge to your homepage, which gets you a dofollow link once it's verified, or skip the badge and pay a small one-time fee for the same dofollow link with nothing to add to your site. Launched products land on a public [leaderboard](/#leaderboard) ranked by Domain Rating, so the page has real internal links pointing to it from day one, which is part of what gets a new page crawled quickly. If you want to compare directories before you commit your time anywhere, the full [platform database](/platforms) shows Domain Rating, cost, and link type for all 142 side by side. Check your existing listings with a `site:` search this week. Keep what's actually indexed and dofollow. Drop what isn't. That single habit will tell you more about your directory backlinks than any Domain Rating number ever will. ## Frequently asked questions ### Do backlinks from startup directories still help SEO? Some do. A dofollow link on a page Google has indexed, from a site relevant to yours, passes a real signal. A nofollow link, or a dofollow link on a page nobody has crawled, passes little to nothing. Check the page before you count on the link. ### Are directory backlinks good for SEO in 2026? They are one small, cheap signal among many, not a strategy on their own. A handful of good directory links help a new site get found and trusted faster. A pile of low-quality ones can look like a link scheme and does more harm than good. ### How do I know if a directory link actually helps my SEO? Search Google for the exact URL of your listing page. If it does not show up, the link is invisible to Google right now, whatever the link's rel attribute says. If it does show up, check whether the link is dofollow and whether the site is relevant to yours. ### Is a nofollow directory link worthless? Not worthless, just smaller. Google has treated nofollow as a hint rather than a strict rule since 2020, so a nofollow link from a page real people visit can still help indirectly, through referral traffic and brand mentions. It just will not pass ranking credit the way a dofollow link does.