Dofollow vs nofollow backlinks: what actually helps a new SaaS

Every launch board advertises "a backlink". Most founders never check what kind. Here's the difference, why it matters more for a new domain than an established one, and how to check any link yourself in ten seconds.

The mechanical difference

When a page links to you, the link either passes ranking signal or it doesn't, and that's controlled by one attribute:

• Dofollow — the default. No special attribute. Search engines treat it as an endorsement and pass authority to your page.
• Nofollow — rel="nofollow". A hint that the linking site doesn't vouch for the destination. Historically ignored for ranking; today treated as a hint rather than a hard rule, which in practice still means "assume close to nothing".
• Sponsored — rel="sponsored". Explicitly a paid placement.
• UGC — rel="ugc". User-generated, like a forum post or a comment.

How to check in ten seconds

Open the page that links to you, right-click the link, choose Inspect, and read the anchor tag:

```html <!-- passes value --> <a href="https://yourproduct.com">Your Product</a>

<!-- passes little to nothing --> <a href="https://yourproduct.com" rel="nofollow">Your Product</a> ```

Do this before spending an evening on a submission, not after.

Does that make nofollow worthless?

No — and anyone telling you it does is selling something. Nofollow links still:

• Send real people, which is the actual point of a launch spike.
• Get your brand name in front of an audience, which produces the branded searches that do help.
• Often get copied by someone else into a dofollow context.

Product Hunt is nofollow. It is still, for many products, the single most valuable launch day available. The mistake isn't using nofollow platforms — it's only using them and wondering why nothing compounds.

Why this matters more when you're new

An established domain has hundreds of links; one more barely moves anything. A domain registered four months ago has almost none, so the first twenty dofollow links from real, indexed sites are doing a completely different job — they're the difference between "search engines don't know this site exists" and "this site can rank for its own brand name".

That's the window where directory submissions and dofollow launch boards are worth the tedium. Later, they're a rounding error.

What a good link actually looks like

Not all dofollow links are equal. In rough order of what matters:

1. The linking page is indexed. Check site:domain.com/the-page. An unindexed page passes nothing.
2. The page is topically related. A SaaS directory linking to your SaaS reads as a genuine reference. A generic "web links" page does not.
3. The site has real traffic and real content. Human-written listings, recent additions, an actual audience.
4. The anchor text is natural. Your product name is ideal. Stuffed keyword anchors from a hundred sites is a pattern that gets sites penalised.

What to avoid outright

• Packages promising hundreds of links for a few dollars.
• Any service that won't name the sites it submits to.
• Networks of sites that exist only to link to each other.
• Paying for a dofollow link on a page that's clearly an ad — that's what rel="sponsored" is for, and misrepresenting it is a risk you're taking on, not the seller.

The practical takeaway

Launch on the big nofollow platforms for the audience. Build your durable link profile from dofollow listings on indexed, human-curated sites, twenty at a time. Check every link before you spend an evening earning it.

For what it's worth: every live product page here carries a dofollow link to the product, launching is free, and the page stays up permanently. You can verify it the same way you'd verify anyone else's — inspect the link.