DR 69, and Their Robots File Tells Google Not to Follow Your Link.
Written by Submitator. Future Tools is one of the directories we file customers to, and this page leads with the unflattering measurement because the case for submitting depends on it being understood. Every figure comes from their own pages and their own robots file, and the footnote says exactly what was checked.
Future Tools is Matt Wolfe's AI database and news desk, rated 69 by Ahrefs, holding 4,286 tool pages beside a newsletter that states 250,000+ readers. Submitting is free, the form is seven fields, and their instruction is a sentence: "Submit it below and Matt will review it."
Now the part most people assume without checking. The link on a listing does not point at your site. It points at an internal /go/ path, and their own robots.txt contains Disallow: /go/. We sampled 80 tool pages: 79 route the link that way, with two such anchors each, and exactly one carried a direct external anchor to the listed tool.
The anchors are clean: rel="noopener noreferrer", no nofollow anywhere. It does not matter, because they point at a path crawlers are told to skip, and your domain never appears in an href on the page at all. A followed link to a blocked address is still no path to your site.
Future Tools at a glance
| What you get | Future Tools |
|---|---|
| Price | $0, no paid tier, no badge |
| The link | Via /go/, which their robots.txt disallows |
| Crawlable path to your domain | None, on 79 of 80 sampled |
| Do they claim a backlink? | No, nowhere on the site |
| Where the redirect sends people | Your URL, with ?ref=futuretools.io |
| Domain Rating | 69 (Ahrefs), their domain, not your link |
| Audience | Newsletter states 250,000+ readers |
| Acceptance | Editorial: Matt reviews submissions |
| Filed for you by Submitator | Free listing, marked no equity on the card, plus 29 more from $29 |
Per futuretools.io, its /submit-a-tool page, its robots.txt and its sitemaps, all read on 10 September 2026. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' figure via submitator.com/domain-rating-checker, which returned 69. Their sitemap index exposes five tool sitemaps holding 4,286 tool pages between them, plus pages, articles, interviews and a Google News feed. The 250,000+ newsletter figure and the "Submit it below and Matt will review it" wording are their own, quoted as theirs. The link finding is a sample, not a census: a seeded random sample of 80 tool URLs, every one fetched successfully at 86-97 KB, parsed rather than pattern-matched. On 79 of the 80 the only anchors aimed at the listed tool are two internal /go/<slug> links carrying rel="noopener noreferrer", and their robots.txt contains "Disallow: /go/"; one listing carried a direct external anchor to the tool's domain instead. Requesting /go/<slug> returns an HTTP 302 to the tool's own URL with ?ref=futuretools.io appended, so the redirect resolves for a visitor. On the pages we examined the tool's domain otherwise appears only as plain text and inside a SoftwareApplication JSON-LD block whose url property names it; structured data is not a link and passes no equity, and we make no claim that it does. None of the 80 pages carries a robots noindex. We searched their home page, submission page and the pages we fetched for the terms backlink, dofollow, do-follow and common SEO-benefit phrasings and found none, so no backlink is claimed by them anywhere we looked. Form fields and their required markers are read from the live submission form, which uses a CAPTCHA; nothing behind it was observed, so review time, acceptance rate and editorial practice are outside what we can report. Submitator files customers to Future Tools and marks it as passing no equity in the dashboard. Our plans are $29 for 30 directories, $49 for 60 and $79 for 100, one-time, chosen by you with each Domain Rating shown, rejections credited back as +1 directory and a 30-day refund policy on the conditions in our terms.
How to submit to Future Tools, step by step
- 1
Write the short description for an editor, not a crawler
A named person reads these. The form asks you to briefly describe what the tool does, and that sentence is doing two jobs: getting past review and appearing on the card afterwards. Say the job the tool performs in plain words and skip the positioning.
- 2
Pick the category from their eighteen
Chat, Generative Art, Generative Video, Generative Code, Text-To-Speech, Search Engines, Productivity, Marketing, Design, Writing, Music, Research, Education, Finance, Healthcare, Legal, Sales, Customer Support and Other. It is a compact, editorially chosen list rather than a sprawling taxonomy, so there is usually one right answer and Other is a last resort.
- 3
Answer the pricing radio honestly
Free, Freemium, Paid or Open Source. It is one of the filters their readers browse by, and Open Source being a first-class option here is unusual and worth using if it applies to you.
- 4
Use a real email, because acceptance is a person's decision
Email is required and the review is editorial rather than automatic. That is the actual gate on this directory: not a fee, not a badge, not a queue, but whether the tool is judged worth adding.
- 5
Then measure it as traffic
The redirect appends ?ref=futuretools.io to your URL, so every visit from a listing arrives tagged. That makes this one of the few free listings where you can answer the did-it-do-anything question from your own analytics rather than guessing.
What the census found
Eighty tool pages, fetched and parsed. On seventy-nine of them, the only anchors aimed at the listed tool are two internal /go/ links. On one, a direct external anchor. None of the eighty is noindexed.
Following the redirect confirms it works as intended for people: a 302 to the tool's own URL with ?ref=futuretools.io attached. The destination is real and the referral is tagged. It is only crawlers that are turned away, by one line in a file the site publishes itself.
One nuance we will not overstate: the tool's URL does appear on the page inside a SoftwareApplication JSON-LD block. Structured data is an association, not a link, and it passes no equity. We mention it because it is there, not because it changes the conclusion.
And they never said otherwise
We looked for a backlink promise on their home page, their submission page and every page we fetched. There is none. Future Tools does not sell links and has never claimed to; what it offers is a place in a curated database and a newsletter with a quarter of a million readers.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Several directories in this catalog advertise a dofollow backlink and then deliver exactly what Future Tools delivers. This one just tells you what it is.
What you are actually getting
A listing edited by a named person, in a database of 4,286 tools, on a site that runs an AI news desk updated through the day and mails a stated 250,000+ readers. The acceptance gate is editorial, which is why a listing here reads as a small endorsement rather than a row in a table.
Put it in your distribution column. We mark it as passing no equity on the card in your dashboard, because a Domain Rating of 69 printed next to a link that cannot be crawled is the single most misleading number a directory catalog can show you, and the whole point of showing you the number is that it means something.
$0 here, and no equity. $29 for thirty, each one measured.
One payment, every directory named in your dashboard with its Domain Rating on the card and a no-equity mark where the link cannot be crawled, so you can tell a link from a listing before you pick it.
Future Tools review: the short answer
Submit. It is free, it takes two minutes, a real editor reads it, and a place in this particular database is worth having on reach alone.
Do not count it as a backlink. Every listing we checked routes through a path their own robots file blocks, and no crawlable link to your domain exists on the page. They are straight about it, which is the reason this page can be too.
Real audience, no crawlable link.
79 of the 80 Future Tools listings we sampled link through a /go/ redirector their robots.txt disallows, so nothing crawlable reaches your domain, and they never claim a backlink anywhere. What is here instead: 4,286 curated tools, an editor who reads submissions by name, a newsletter stating 250,000+ readers and a referral tagged ?ref=futuretools.io so you can measure it. The whole catalog.
FAQ
Is a Future Tools link dofollow?
The question does not quite apply, and the answer is still no. The anchors carry a clean rel of noopener noreferrer, but they point at an internal /go/ path rather than at your domain, and their own robots.txt contains “Disallow: /go/”. We sampled 80 of their 4,286 tool pages: 79 route the link that way and only one carried a direct external anchor. So there is no crawlable path from the listing to your site.
Where does the /go/ link actually send people?
Straight to you. It answers with a 302 to your URL with ?ref=futuretools.io appended, so the redirect works for humans and the referral is tagged in your analytics. It is the crawlers that are told not to follow it.
Is Future Tools hiding that?
No. We searched their pages for the words backlink, dofollow and any SEO promise and found none. They sell discovery and never sell a link, which is more than several directories that promise one and deliver exactly this.
So why submit to Future Tools?
The audience. Their newsletter states 250,000+ readers, the site runs an AI news desk updated through the day, and the tool database is curated personally: their submit page says “Submit it below and Matt will review it”. Being in a database that size, edited by a named person with that reach, is the return here.
What does the Future Tools form ask for?
Seven fields, five required. Your name is optional; the tool name, tool URL, a short description, a category from eighteen and a pricing model from Free, Freemium, Paid or Open Source are required, as is your email. There is an optional newsletter checkbox and a CAPTCHA before the Submit Tool button.
Does Future Tools cost anything?
No. There is no paid tier in the submission flow, no badge asked of your site and no account to create. Acceptance is editorial rather than automatic, which is the actual gate.
What is Future Tools' Domain Rating?
69 on Ahrefs, one of the higher numbers in our catalog. On this listing it describes their domain and not your link, because no crawlable link to you exists, so we mark it accordingly on the card.
Is Future Tools worth submitting to?
Yes, filed correctly. It is free, the form takes two minutes, the database is large and genuinely curated, and the referral link is tagged so you can see whether it sent anyone. Put it in your distribution column rather than your backlink column and it is one of the better free listings available.
More submit-to guides.
Future Tools is free. Thirty directories are $29, each one measured.
One payment, each directory named with its Domain Rating on the card before you choose it, a no-equity mark where the link cannot be crawled, badges installed and kept live where one is wanted, and a rejection swapped for another directory.