We read the HTML of 13 startup directories to see what kind of link they actually give you

Every startup directory implies the same thing: list here and you get a backlink. Almost none of them tell you what kind.

The difference matters. A do-follow link passes ranking signal to your site. A no-follow link asks search engines not to count it. Both can send you visitors — that part is real either way — but only one of them helps you rank, and the pages selling you a listing rarely make the distinction.

So we read the HTML. Thirteen directories, one live listing page each, on 9 August 2026. Not what they claim in their marketing — what the rel attribute on the link to the listed product actually says.

The results

Four things worth pulling out

Futurepedia asks $497 for a verified listing. Every outbound tool link we found on a live category page carried rel="nofollow". The price was read from their pricing page on 7 August, the links on 9 August. That is not a scam and we are not calling it one — a listing on a large directory brings traffic and credibility, and those are worth paying for if that is what you want. But if you are paying to move your rankings, this specific $497 does not do that.

BetaList does not link to you at all. The button on a listing page points at betalist.com/startups/<name>/visit, an internal redirect, carrying rel="noopener nofollow". Your URL never appears in the page. Whatever else that listing is worth, there is no link there to evaluate.

Show HN is earned, not granted. Across all 29 submissions on the Show HN front page, 18 were no-follow and 11 were not. Hacker News drops the no-follow once a post gains enough traction. You cannot buy that outcome or apply for it; the link follows the post doing well.

Startup Fame advertises "10+ do-follow backlinks". Half right. On the two listing pages we read, the main link to the product is do-follow and further links to the same domain carry rel="ugc", which is a form of no-follow. Mixed, not do-follow.

No-follow is not worthless, and we are not going to pretend it is

Google has treated nofollow as a hint rather than a directive since 2019, so a no-follow link is not guaranteed to count for nothing. More importantly, links bring people. A Product Hunt launch that goes well can put more real users in front of your product in a day than a year of ranking signal, and Product Hunt tags its links no-follow.

The point is not that no-follow directories are bad. It is that "get a backlink" is doing a lot of work in their marketing, and now you can tell which kind you are getting before you spend an afternoon or $497 on it.

What we give, since you would be right to ask

We are a directory too, so the same question applies to us. Every listing here links to the tool with rel="noopener noreferrer" and nothing else — no nofollow, no ugc, no redirect. That is a do-follow link, and you can check it on any listing page with view-source before you believe us.

We would rather you checked. That is the whole method of this article.

What we are not claiming

One listing page per directory, on one day. A directory can change its rel attributes at any time, on some pages and not others, and several of these use different templates for paid and free placements — we read what a normal listing looks like, not every variant.

AlternativeTo returned HTTP 403 to our request, so we have no reading for it and have said so rather than guessing from its public pages.

Prices came from each directory's own pricing page on 7 August 2026 and move more often than link policies do. Check the current figure before you pay anything.

The full detail for each — pricing, submission friction, what the badge requirement actually asks of you — is on our directories page, with the source link for every claim.