Dofollow Directories: Which Ones Pass a Followed Link

What is a dofollow directory?

A directory publishes a page for each product it lists, and that page links to the product's site, usually from a Visit button. Dofollow is shorthand for an anchor with no nofollow, ugc or sponsored on it: no rel value switches a link on, and noopener or noreferrer leave it followed. What each rel value tells Google is set out in a post of its own.

What makes a directory dofollow, and not just one of its links, is that the directory sets the rule. Its template decides the rel for every listing, or its own terms tie the followed link to a badge, a paid tier or a weekly rank. So a count of its newest listings tells you what the next listing, yours, is likely to get, and that is the count each row below carries.

Dofollow web directories and launch boards

The rule is the same whatever the directory files: an old general web directory, a launch board, an AI tool list or a software catalog. The general kind is mostly gone, and which kinds of web directory still take submissions gets a post of its own; every directory on this page takes websites and online products in 2026.

Dofollow directory list, with the evidence

The first table holds the 43 dofollow directory submission sites whose live listings our guides counted and found followed, with no badge, payment or rank deciding the link. They are sorted by Domain Rating from DR 72 down, and each name links to our guide to submitting there, which carries the full count. DeepLaunch (DR 72) leads it, followed on 80 of 80 listings sampled; Productivity Directory (DR 41) links each of its 416 listings twice, and all 832 links were followed; Viberank (DR 52) followed all 450 app pages.

Where a row reads through a redirect, as 5 do, the Visit button points at a path on the directory's own domain that forwards the visitor to you, the anchor carries no nofollow and the directory's robots.txt leaves that path open. Whether a redirected listing link still counts is answered in our post on links from directories. Several of these directories cost nothing to join, and the free ones, with what each asks in return, have a list of their own.

Dofollow directories with a badge, a payment or a rank

Every row of the second table attaches a condition to the followed link, and the directory's own rule decides who gets it. Most often the rule is a badge: 17 of these 24 ask for one on your site, required or optional, and on DailyPings, CurlShip and SubmitMySaas the counts line up with it: badge present, link followed; badge absent, nofollow. Elsewhere it is a payment or a rank. Launch Vault (DR 61) sells its Premium launch at $9.99, and its guide found the link followed on all 75 Premium listings and on every free launch that won a top-three place in its ranking: 1,234 of 2,290 pages in all. Uneed follows a free launch once it collects enough upvotes.

A badge rule is a reason to pick a directory, not to skip it. Findly.tools (DR 82) is the strongest directory on this page with its followed link counted, and its free listing carries one followed link while the badge is on your site: all 90 listings its guide sampled carried one. With Submitator the badge is our job. One component, installed on your site once, serves every badge your directories ask for, and we keep each of them live after every redesign, with no commit from you for any directory. If you would rather show no badges at all, the directories that ask for none have a post of their own.

Are directory links dofollow? 13 that measured otherwise

Not always, even where the record says dofollow. Our catalog files these 13 as dofollow, and their guides found something else on the live listings: a nofollow or ugc on the anchor, a button routed through a path the directory's own robots.txt blocks, a link that appears after a click and nowhere else, a nofollowed copy in the HTML the server sends or no direct link at all. Our records flag 8 of them, and those carry the no-equity mark beside their DR wherever we print it.

Some are big names. AlternativeTo (DR 81) put nofollow on all 25 of its newest listings when its guide read them on 18 October 2026, though older listings are mixed. A directory's rule can change after a list is written, which is why the date sits beside every count here. None of these 13 is named on this page as a place to get a followed link.

List of dofollow directory submission sites on our record

The other 34 dofollow directories have not had their listings counted yet, and these rows rest on our admin's record of the link type. 8 have a guide, linked from the name. Some of the strongest domains in the catalog sit here: Startup Fame (DR 84) and Twelve Tools (DR 83) both require a badge, which our component carries, and SaaSHub (DR 80) has no guide yet. For the catalog cut by Domain Rating alone, the directories at DR 50 and up have their own post, and every directory we submit to, nofollow rows included is sorted by link type in another.

Six directories an AI answer calls dofollow, against our records

Ask Google's AI Mode for dofollow directories and it answers with a list. On 17 October 2026 it named six for startups and SaaS: F6S, AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, StackShare, Uno Directory and Similar Labs, each described as giving dofollow links. Here is what our catalog records for each and what their live listings showed.

Uno Directory holds up best: its product links were followed on every product page read on 30 October 2026, though it is not in our catalog. StackShare's followed links line up with the listings it marks verified, 12 of 20 tool pages in its guide's read, and Similar Labs follows the listings it is paid for since closing its free routes in October 2026, when we took it out of the set we submit to. AlternativeTo's newest listings are nofollow. SaaSHub sits in our catalog without a count yet, and F6S has no row in it. An AI answer that calls a directory dofollow is a lead worth checking, and a dated count is the check.

Dofollow directories for startups, SaaS and AI tools

By the kind of product they take, the 114 split into 40 launch boards and startup directories, 37 SaaS and software directories and 37 directories for AI tools. Counted by our guides and seen followed, with or without a condition: 19, 24 and 23 of them. An AI product fits all three groups, and so does most SaaS, so one order can mix them.

Each group has a page that prints all of it, dofollow or not: the hub for AI products, the one for SaaS and software and, for launches, the catalog table on our where-to-submit page. Launch platforms compared by the link they pass have a page of their own as well.

How to check if a directory is dofollow

Check the directory, not one link. Open three or four of its newest listings, since a directory's rule can change and its newest pages show the current one, and find the button that leads to the listed product. Then work down this list:

1. Read the rel on that button, in the page source or in DevTools. Nofollow, ugc or sponsored anywhere in it means the link is not followed; no rel, or noopener and noreferrer alone, means it is.
2. Compare a listing that shows the directory's badge with one that does not, and a paid listing with a free one. A split between them is the directory's condition, and it tells you which route to take.
3. Hover the button. If the address is a path on the directory's own domain, open its /robots.txt and look for that path under Disallow.
4. If the button is missing from the page source but present in DevTools, the directory builds its links in the browser, and a reader of the raw HTML will not see them.

Once your own listing is up, run the same check on it. The check of a single link, step by step, robots meta tags and headers included, is in the companion post, and our free DR checker gives the Domain Rating of any directory that is not on this page.

Are dofollow directories worth it in 2026?

Yes, as one source of followed links among several. Ahrefs' glossary entry on Domain Rating lists as its first factor The number of domains linking to a website (referring domains). A dofollow directory listing is one more referring domain with a followed link, and a directory picked for your kind of product also puts you on a page that people comparing tools browse. How many referring domains it takes is set by the pages you compete with, and that post works the number out from real sites.

Do dofollow directories raise your DR?

They can add to it, and nobody can promise how much. The same Ahrefs entry says The exact formula of Domain Rating is not disclosed, and among its factors it lists the rating of each linking domain and how many other sites that domain links to, so two followed listings rarely weigh the same. A listing page also has to be crawled before its link is seen: how Google finds a new listing page is a post of its own, and what a DR of 30 or 60 says about a site is another.

Do follow directory submission sites, done for you

Submitator files to the directories in all four tables above. In the dashboard each one shows its DR as you tick it, and the counts on this page are there to choose by. From the order on, the forms are our work, with a description written for each directory to its own rules, and the badge directories need nothing more from you: the component described above carries their badges as well.

Most directories are delivered in 24 to 48 hours, every directory within 21 days at most. Should a directory reject your submission, the default is one extra directory of your choosing (All Directories spans the whole catalog already, so there is nothing to swap in). A refund can be requested within 30 days of purchase, on the conditions in our terms. We add a directory to the catalog after a submission to it has gone through end to end, which is why it counts 160+ directories, not thousands.

Plans are paid once: $29 for 30 directories, $49 for 60 and $79 for 100, or All Directories at $149 for every directory in the catalog and each one added after it. Every plan includes free indexing by IndexMachine ($25 value), our sister product. On every order we run your new listing pages through it ourselves and you do nothing; whether and when Google indexes a page stays Google's call.