jqzShort answer: of roughly 200 free directory submissions I made for three products between 2026-10-03 and 2026-10-18, about 30 sites went live and only 8 gave a link I could confirm as dofollow in the page's server-rendered HTML. The fast ones were Directory Index (live in seconds), FreeBacklink.org (about 1.5 hours after email verification), WorthToTry (about a minute after confirming), AZN8 (instant via API), LaunchFree (about 24 hours) and SuperLaunch (about 5 days). Don't trust a directory's email about dofollow; read the HTML yourself.
I'm a solo developer. When I launched Vaneform, then MeetNewAI and EarlyLore, I had no audience and no budget for "featured" listings. So I did the unglamorous thing: submit to free directories and log every result. This is what the log says.
What counts as "worked"?
A submission worked only if all three were true:
- The listing page loads and isn't
noindex. - The link to my site is in the server-rendered HTML (what a crawler sees before JavaScript).
- The link has no
rel="nofollow",ugcorsponsored.
I check this with a script that fetches the listing and reads the rel attribute, at +3 and +7 days. Emails and dashboards were wrong often enough that I stopped reading them as evidence.
Which free directories gave a dofollow link?
Verified in SSR HTML, as of 2026-10-18:
| Directory | Account | Time to live | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Directory Index | none | ~30 seconds | Needs a screenshot (min 800×600) and 100+ chars of SEO copy |
| FreeBacklink.org | none | ~1.5 h after email verify | Arithmetic captcha; "free during beta" |
| WorthToTry | none | ~1 minute after confirm link | AI-tool focused; flagged a square og:image |
| AZN8 | instant | Has an API and MCP; one account, several listings | |
| LaunchFree | ~24 h | Human review, Cloudflare Turnstile | |
| SuperLaunch | ~5 days | Submit page now says "Free for 7 days"; recheck later | |
| AppRater | none | days | Dofollow via a /visit/ redirect |
| Viesearch | none | ~1 day | After confirming, re-select the free plan or it stalls |
That's 8 out of about 30 live sites. The rest were nofollow, noindex or had no link in the SSR HTML.
Which ones looked free but weren't?
- "Free, no badge" until the last step, which asks for a backlink in your footer (Tool Index and Neeed both did this).
- Free tiers that expire: AI Compass keeps free listings for 28 days; FreeBacklink is free "during beta"; one directory switched to paid between being listed in a public list and my visit.
- Queues measured in months or years: one showed a position in the thousands; another estimated 2028.
- Votes as a gate: Uneed needs 10 launch-day votes to keep the listing and 20 for dofollow.
I skip all of these. I also never add a reciprocal badge to get a free tier. It's a link on my product for a link on theirs, and it clutters the product for every user.
Which emails were wrong?
- Launch Llama's email said the link was dofollow. The SSR HTML said
rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow". - MCP.Directory said review takes up to 24 hours. It was still 404 more than four days later.
- FoundrList flipped between a
noindex"preview" page and a 404 for a week.
None of these are scandals. Directories change. The point is to check, not to trust.
What about GitHub awesome lists?
GitHub adds rel="nofollow" to README links, so awesome-list PRs don't pass link equity. I still open them, because they help people (and AI models trained on GitHub) find the product. Expect weeks, not days: of about 15 PRs I opened for Vaneform in October, 2 were merged within a week.
What made PRs go smoothly: read CONTRIBUTING, match the row format exactly, one entry per PR, a neutral one-line description with no superlatives, and say you're the maintainer.
How do I pick the next directory?
Before submitting anywhere I check:
- Is there a free tier, and does it expire?
- Captcha, Google-only or GitHub-only sign-in? (I skip reCAPTCHA and hCaptcha.)
- English only? DevElif rejected my bilingual site with "must be in English" even with English copy.
- Category fit: AI-only directories reject non-AI products.
- Does the directory get real visitors? I look the domain up on Vaneform first; a directory nobody visits sends nobody. Vaneform also has a longer guide on evaluating SaaS directories.
If your product is an AI tool, MeetNewAI is the AI tools directory I run. It sorts tools by the job you need done.
What pace is safe?
I cap it at 3–5 new submissions per product per day, and never the same directory for two products on the same day. On 2026-10-18 two of my automated runs didn't see each other's claims and together submitted one product 7 times in a day, with two directories receiving two of my products at once. Now each run writes a claim before it submits.
FAQ
How many free directories actually give dofollow backlinks?
In my log, about 30 of roughly 200 submissions went live, and 8 of those had a dofollow link in the server-rendered HTML. A separate scan of 134 live directory listings found 48 dofollow, 36 nofollow and 11 noindex.
What's the fastest free directory to get listed on?
Directory Index went live in about 30 seconds with no account. FreeBacklink.org took about 1.5 hours after email verification, and WorthToTry about a minute after clicking the confirm link.
How do I check if a backlink is dofollow?
Fetch the listing page without JavaScript (for example with curl), find the anchor that points to your domain and read its rel attribute. If it contains nofollow, ugc or sponsored, it's not dofollow. Also check the page isn't noindex.
Are GitHub awesome-list links dofollow?
No. GitHub adds rel="nofollow" to links in READMEs. They can still bring visitors and help with discovery.