guide
Dofollow backlinks, explained
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat those links as votes, and the type of link decides how much of that vote gets counted. A do-follow backlink passes that signal; a nofollow one tells search engines not to count it. This page explains the difference and how to get the kind that helps.
Dofollow versus nofollow, in plain terms
When a link is do-follow, the page linking to you is passing along a small amount of trust. Crawlers follow the link, discover your site, and factor the link into how they rank you. When a link is nofollow, the HTML carries a rel="nofollow" attribute, and the search engine is told not to treat the link as an endorsement.
Nofollow links are not worthless. They still send real visitors, and a link from a well-read page brings people even when the ranking signal is switched off. But if your goal is to strengthen a new site, do-follow links from relevant pages are the ones worth chasing.
Why so many directories use nofollow
Most directories mark every outbound link as nofollow, because otherwise the site becomes a target for anyone buying links in bulk. The ones that do offer do-follow links usually put them behind a paid tier, or hand them out indiscriminately, which is exactly what makes them low value.
ShowBuild does it the other way around. Every listing points at your project, and listings are set to do-follow once the backlink is verified. There is no paid tier for it.
How verification works on ShowBuild
A listing starts as a normal link. To earn the verified do-follow badge, you add a link back to ShowBuild from your own site. Open your profile, find the listing, and copy the snippet shown there. It is a single anchor tag pointing at your listing on the board.
Put that link somewhere on the page you submitted: a footer, a partners or press page, or a “featured on” strip are all normal places. Then come back to your profile and verify. ShowBuild fetches the page and checks that the link is present, and the listing switches to do-follow.
What makes a backlink actually count
- Relevance. A link from a page about your subject area is worth more than a link from an unrelated one, so submit to the category that genuinely fits.
- Placement in the content. Links near the main content carry more weight than links buried in a site-wide footer with a hundred other directories.
- A real destination. Point at the product page, not a parked domain, and make sure the page loads quickly and says what the product does.
- Patience. New links take time to be recrawled and counted. Indexing is measured in weeks, not hours.
Keeping it clean
Buying links in bulk or swapping them at scale is the fastest way to get links discounted or trigger a penalty. A verified link from a board you actually use, pointing at a product you actually built, is the version that holds up. Start with what ShowBuild is if you have not listed a project yet.