Nofollow directories: what you get
A nofollow link does not pass ranking signals directly, so the case for these is traffic and audience rather than SEO. Several of the largest sites on the whole list are nofollow, and they are still the ones worth launching on.
Nofollow directories, defined
A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow" (or increasingly rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc"), an attribute that tells search engines not to pass ranking signals through it. Several of the largest directories on this list are nofollow by policy, including some with millions of monthly visitors.
The attribute is a publisher decision, not a quality judgement. Sites that accept open submissions often mark every outbound link nofollow simply because they cannot vouch for what gets submitted, which says nothing about whether their audience is worth reaching.
By the numbers
These 34 directories have a median rating of DR 66. The strongest is Product Hunt at DR 91, the weakest at DR 10. 15 of them accept a submission for nothing, and 9 charge for every listing.
That is 8 points above the median for the full list of 175 directories, which sits at DR 58. By band that is 6 rated 80 or above, 14 rated 60 to 79, 2 rated 40 to 59 and 12 rated below 40. 4 of them have no traffic estimate at all, which usually means too little to measure rather than none.
What a listing actually gets you
The case for these is traffic and exposure, not ranking signals. A nofollow link from a site sending real visitors is worth considerably more than a dofollow one from a site sending none, and the biggest launch platforms in existence fall in the first group.
There is a secondary effect that has grown in importance. Nofollow mentions still appear in the link graph, still get crawled, and still form part of the corpus that language models draw on when they answer questions about software. Being absent from those pages is a cost that the attribute does not describe.
Submitting without wasting the evening
Judge these purely on the audience. Sort the table by traffic, ignore the rating column for a moment, and submit to the ones with readers. Write the listing as a piece of marketing rather than a link placement, because the visit is the entire return here and the description is what converts it.
Common mistakes
Skipping the biggest directories in the category because the link is nofollow, which is the most expensive mistake on this page. Treating nofollow as a reason to put less effort into the listing. And assuming the attribute is permanent: several sites switch it on upgrade, and some have changed policy site-wide.
Where to start
By audience size, the biggest here are Product Hunt, AlternativeTo and TrustMRR, led by 4.84M visits a month. The highest-rated one you can use without paying is Product Hunt at DR 91. 5 approve quickly, Startup Fame, Indie Hackers and AlternativeTo among them.
Questions people ask
How many are there, and what do they cost?
34 directories match on this page. 15 take a submission for nothing, 10 run a free tier with paid upgrades, and 6 charge for every listing.
Which should I submit to first?
By rating, Product Hunt (DR 91), Startup Fame (DR 84) and Turbo0 (DR 81). By audience, Product Hunt is the largest at 4.84M 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 does nofollow mean?
It is an attribute on a link telling search engines not to pass ranking signals through it. Introduced to fight comment spam, it is now standard on sites that accept open submissions and cannot vouch for every entry.
Is a nofollow link pointless?
No. It does not pass ranking signals directly, but it still sends visitors, still gets your name in front of people, and still appears in the link graph that other tools and models read. Pointless would be a dofollow link on a page nobody visits.
How do I tell if a link is dofollow or nofollow?
Open the page, view the source, find the link to your site and look for rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". A browser extension will highlight them all at once if you are checking a batch.
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.