Dofollow vs nofollow: what founders need to know about directory links

When you submit your startup to a directory, you are doing it for one of two reasons: referral traffic or SEO. If you are using a tiered launch strategy, this distinction is paramount. If your goal is SEO, then the difference between "dofollow" and "nofollow" links is the most important concept you need to understand.

Submitting to a DR 90 directory might feel like a huge win, but if that link is nofollow, it will do almost nothing to improve your domain's ability to rank on Google.

A "dofollow" link is a standard hyperlink. By default, all links on the internet are dofollow unless explicitly coded otherwise. When Google's crawlers find a dofollow link pointing from a directory to your startup, they pass "PageRank" (often called "link juice") from the directory to you.

This acts as a vote of confidence. If a highly authoritative site (like Crunchbase, DR 91) links to your site with a dofollow link, Google assumes your site must also be trustworthy and authoritative.

A "nofollow" link contains a specific HTML tag: `rel="nofollow"`. This tag tells search engines, "I am linking to this site, but I do not want to pass any of my SEO authority to it."

Many major platforms use nofollow links by default to deter spammers. For example, all links in Twitter bios, Reddit comments, and Hacker News posts are nofollow.

A healthy backlink profile looks natural. If 100% of your links are dofollow, Google's algorithms might flag your site for manipulative link building. Having a mix of nofollow links from social media and community platforms is normal.

When it comes to the manual effort of submitting to directories, prioritize dofollow links. A single dofollow link from a DR 50 directory will move your SEO needle more than ten nofollow links from DR 80 directories.