Which SaaS Directories Link Back? We Read 36 of Our Own Listings

What we did

We list our own products on launch directories, like many founders do. For this report we took 36 of those listings — for mxverify.uk and nqz.ai, both ours — on 35 directories, and read every listing page on 3 October 2026 the way a bklink audit reads a page: is the listing there, does it link to the product, and what does its rel attribute say.

Disclosure. Both products are ours, and most of these directories appear in the "Listed on" strip on mxverify.uk's home page. Nobody was asked about this report or paid for a place in it. We do not know which listing tier (free or paid) each directory gave us, so a directory may treat paid listings differently.

The short answer

21 of 36 listings (58%) linked back to the product with a followed link. 25 linked back at all in the page's HTML. None marked the link sponsored, and none sent it through the directory's own redirect.

Followed, nofollow, ugc

A link's rel attribute is how a site tells search engines what kind of link it is. Google treats nofollow, ugc (user-generated content) and sponsored as hints about whether to pass credit through the link (Google Search Central). 4 listings marked their link nofollow, 1 of them also ugc. Most followed links carried only noopener or noreferrer, which are about the browser, not search engines.

A nofollow listing is not worthless: it can still send visitors. It asks search engines not to pass credit through the link, and Google usually follows that hint.

When the link is not in the page

3 listings named the product only in the page's data — its structured data or the app's state — with no link to it in the HTML. The link a visitor sees is drawn by script after the page loads. Google renders JavaScript and may see such a link; a reader of the page's HTML, like an audit, does not.

5 listing addresses did not show the listing when we read them: the address opened the directory's home page, a category page or a preview. That can mean a listing still waiting for approval, a listing moved to a new address, or an address we recorded wrongly. We do not count these as "no link".

1 listing page answered 404 (gone). 2 directories refused our reader (403), so we cannot say what they show.

Every listing, as read on 3 October 2026

What to check before you count a directory link

1. Open the listing and view its source. Your address should be in an <a href>, not only in the page's data.
2. Read the rel. nofollow, ugc or sponsored mean the directory is asking search engines not to count it.
3. Check it is public. A preview or pending listing is not a published one; open it signed out.
4. Keep the listing's address, and check it again later. A listing that moves or disappears takes its link with it.

bklink audits run these checks on every link you place, and check them again over time.

Method and limits

• Each listing page was read once, on 3 October 2026, as a bklink audit reads a page: one request with a browser's headers, no JavaScript run. A link drawn only by script is reported as such, not as missing.
• These are our own listings, 2 products on 35 directories — not a sample of every product or directory.
• One reading says nothing about how long a listing lasts. This report will be re-read at 30, 60 and 90 days, and each edition will say what changed.
• Directory names are as their sites give them; each row is what that page showed on that day.