Dofollow vs nofollow: which directory links actually help

Every directory list you'll find sorts entries by whether the link is dofollow or nofollow, and treats the dofollow ones as the prize. That's roughly right, but the reasoning behind it is usually wrong, and the practical conclusion founders draw from it costs them opportunities that were worth taking.

What the attribute actually is

There is no such thing as a "dofollow" attribute. There's only the absence of a rel value that says otherwise. A plain link looks like this:

<a href="https://yourproduct.com">Your Product</a>

That link passes ranking signals. A link that doesn't looks like this:

<a href="https://yourproduct.com" rel="nofollow">Your Product</a>

The rel attribute is the site owner telling search engines something about the relationship. There are three values that matter for directory listings:

• nofollow says the site doesn't vouch for the destination.
• ugc marks a link as user generated content, which most directory listings technically are.
• sponsored marks a link that was paid for, in money or in kind.

All three reduce or remove the ranking signal that passes through. If you're checking a directory before submitting, any of the three means you're not getting the full SEO benefit.

Why this matters less than you think

Two things have changed since the attribute was introduced.

First, Google stated in 2019 that it treats these attributes as hints rather than directives. That means it reserves the right to consider a nofollow link anyway, in ways it hasn't specified. Nobody outside Google knows how often that happens, and anyone who tells you they've measured it precisely is guessing.

Second, and more importantly, ranking signal was never the only reason to want a link. A link on a page that people actually read does three things independent of the rel attribute:

1. It sends visitors. Referral traffic doesn't care about link attributes at all.
2. It puts your brand name on a page that gets crawled. Search engines build an understanding of what entities exist and how they relate from mentions, not only from followed links.
3. It puts you in the retrieval pool for AI answers. When someone asks an AI tool for alternatives in your category, the pages it fetches are often directory and comparison pages. Whether the link on that page was nofollow is irrelevant to whether the page mentions you.

That last point is the one most link guides haven't caught up with, and we go into it properly in do directory backlinks help you get cited by AI.

How to check before you submit

Don't trust a list, including ours. Attributes change during redesigns and plenty of published lists are years stale. Checking takes about twenty seconds.

Find any existing listing on the directory. View source, or open developer tools, and search the HTML for the outbound link. Look at what's in the rel attribute on the anchor pointing at the listed product's site.

Two traps to know about:

The listing page and the category page often differ. A directory might give a followed link on the individual listing page and nofollow every link on the browse page. Check the page your listing will actually live on.

Some directories link through a redirect. If the href points at directory.com/go/yourproduct rather than at your domain, you're getting a redirect hop, and whether any signal survives depends on how that redirect is configured. Treat it as weaker than a direct link.

How to actually weigh a directory

If you rank directories by link attribute alone, you'll skip good ones and chase bad ones. A more honest ordering, roughly in priority order:

1. Does anyone read it? A followed link on a dead site is worth less than a nofollow link on a site with an engaged audience.
2. Is it relevant to your category? Relevance affects both ranking value and the odds that a real buyer finds you.
3. Will the listing page get indexed? A link on a page that never enters the index passes nothing at all, regardless of attribute. This trips up more listings than most founders realize, and we covered it in why most directory listings never get indexed.
4. Is the link followed? Real, and worth preferring, but fourth.

The short version

Prefer dofollow. Don't refuse nofollow. A nofollow link from a site your buyers actually use is a better outcome than a followed link from a site that exists only to host links, and the second kind carries risk that the first doesn't.

Our directory list records link type on every entry, along with pricing and what each directory is genuinely good for, so you can weigh all four of those factors instead of just the last one.