Dofollow AI directories, in short
A dofollow link passes ranking signals to your domain, which is why most people work through a list like this at all. Relevance still matters more than the rating: one link from a directory in your niche is worth several from a general one.
Dofollow backlink sites, defined
A dofollow link is an ordinary link: one without a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute telling search engines not to pass ranking signals through it. Every link is dofollow by default, so "dofollow directory" really means a directory that has not added the attribute.
You can check any listing yourself in about five seconds: open the page, view source, find the link to your site, and look for rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" on it. Browser extensions will highlight them for you if you are checking many at once. Do not take the directory's word for it, because the attribute frequently differs between the free and paid tiers.
By the numbers
These 41 directories have a median rating of DR 56. The strongest is DEV Community at DR 91, the weakest at DR 12. 7 of them accept a submission for nothing, and 8 charge for every listing.
That puts them in line with the list as a whole, which runs to a median of DR 58. By band that is 4 rated 80 or above, 13 rated 60 to 79, 14 rated 40 to 59 and 10 rated below 40. 15 of them have no traffic estimate at all, which usually means too little to measure rather than none.
What a listing actually gets you
On the directories that still get traffic, a listing does three things. It puts your tool in front of people already in the market for one, which is a better audience than any social post reaches. It creates a page that can rank for your product name plus a modifier, so "yourtool alternatives" or "yourtool pricing" has somewhere to land that you did not have to build. And it adds a mention in the places that language models now read when they answer questions about software, which is becoming its own reason to be listed.
What a listing does not do is move your rankings on its own. One directory link, dofollow or not, is a rounding error. The value accumulates across a dozen relevant listings over months, alongside everything else you are doing, and anyone promising otherwise is selling submissions.
Submitting without wasting the evening
Write the listing for someone who has already seen forty AI tools this week. Say what it does in the first line, name the model or the method if it is a differentiator, and skip the words "revolutionary" and "powered by AI" entirely. The directories that still get traffic are moderated by people who read hundreds of these, and a vague submission is the easiest rejection they make all day. Have a square logo, one screenshot and a 200-character summary ready before you open the first form.
Common mistakes
Treating link count as the goal, which leads directly to submitting everywhere regardless of fit. Using the same keyword-stuffed anchor text on every listing. And paying for dofollow upgrades on directories with no traffic, which buys the signal without the substance behind it.
Where to start
By audience size, the biggest here are Hacker News, DEV Community and Toolify.ai, led by 13.53M visits a month. The highest-rated one you can use without paying is DEV Community at DR 91. 9 approve quickly, Findly.tools, ShowMeBestAI and Dofollow Tools among them.
Questions people ask
How many are there, and what do they cost?
41 directories match on this page. 7 take a submission for nothing, 26 run a free tier with paid upgrades, and 8 charge for every listing.
Which should I submit to first?
By rating, DEV Community (DR 91), Hacker News (DR 91) and Dang.ai (DR 82). By audience, Hacker News is the largest at 13.53M visits a month. Relevance beats both: a directory that actually covers what you built will do more than a stronger one that does not.
What is a dofollow backlink?
A normal link that passes ranking signals to the page it points at. Links are dofollow unless the publisher adds rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored", so the term describes the absence of an attribute rather than the presence of one.
How do I tell if a link is dofollow?
View the page source, find the link to your site and check for rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". An extension can highlight them in bulk. Check after your listing goes live, because the attribute often differs between free and paid tiers.
How many dofollow directory links are safe?
There is no number, but pace and relevance matter more than volume. A handful from directories that cover your category, added over weeks, looks like what it is. Eighty in a weekend does not.
Are directory backlinks still relevant?
As one modest input among many, yes. As a strategy on their own, no, and they have not been for a long time. Treat the good directories as a traffic and discovery channel that happens to leave a link behind.
What is an AI tool directory?
A curated index of AI software, usually organised by what the tool does rather than which model it runs on. Most let you filter by category and pricing, and the better ones write their own descriptions instead of reprinting your marketing copy.
What is the best AI tool directory?
There is no single best one, but the table above orders them by the two things that matter: how strong the domain is and how many people actually visit. There's An AI For That and Dang.ai are the two most people start with, and Product Hunt still sends more launch-day traffic than any AI-specific site.
Are free AI directories worth submitting to?
The ones with traffic are. The ones without are a link on a page nobody visits, which is worth roughly nothing whatever the domain rating says. Sort by the traffic column before you sort by anything else.
Every figure quoted above is read off the table on this page, so it moves as the list does. Domain rating and traffic are third-party estimates captured in September 2026: useful for ordering a shortlist, not precise figures.