The fastest way to get backlinks for a new website is to list it in the directories that give a followed link, then earn the slower links from what you have already built. Of the 126 startup directories, launch platforms and review sites we track, 40 give a followed link on an ordinary listing, 21 of those on a free tier, and 7 of the 40 sit at DR 70 or above (checked 22 September 2026). Everything after that batch, from partner pages to press, takes months and depends on having something worth linking to.
The six methods below are ordered by how fast they work for a domain at DR 0. Do them in this order.
What moves the needle at DR 0
A backlink counts when it is a followed link from a domain that has not linked to you before. Domain Rating by Ahrefs, the score directories and founders quote, looks at exactly that: which domains link to you, weighted by their own DR. It ignores nofollow, ugc and sponsored links, and it counts the second link from the same domain roughly once. A followed link is one with no rel=nofollow, rel=ugc or rel=sponsored attribute on the anchor.
Three consequences for a new site:
- Referring domains beat backlinks. Five hundred links from three domains is three links. Every method below is worth doing once per domain.
- A nofollow link from a DR 91 site does nothing for DR. Product Hunt, Hacker News, G2 and Capterra all sit at DR 91 and all link nofollow. They send visitors and get you crawled, but they do not move the score.
- Ten is the number. Ten followed links from distinct DR 60+ domains lifts a DR 0 site into double digits. Check yours on the Domain Rating checker before you start and again a month after the first batch goes live.
1. Directory listings with a followed link
Directory listings are the fastest backlinks a new domain can get, because the directory wants your listing and the form takes ten minutes. Of the 126 directories we track, 40 give a followed link on a standard listing. By cost, 5 of the 40 are entirely free, 16 give the followed link on a free tier with a paid queue-skip, 13 charge for every listing and 6 do not publish their pricing. The paid ones we have prices for charge between $1 and $66, most of them one-time. The median DR of the 40 is 53.
The ten highest-DR directories with a followed link, sorted by DR:
| Directory | DR | Link | Cost | Approval |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fazier | 83 | Followed | Freemium, $29 to skip the queue | Up to 30 days free, instant paid |
| Findly.tools | 81 | Followed | Freemium, $29 Premium | Reviewed; Premium live within 24 hours |
| ToolPilot AI | 78 | Followed | Freemium | Not stated; badge speeds review |
| BetaList | 77 | Followed | Paid | Editorial review, timing by plan |
| There’s An AI For That | 77 | Followed | Paid, $49 | 1–2 days after manual review |
| PeerPush | 75 | Followed | Freemium, $39 paid launch | Free queue; paid live in about a minute |
| Submit AI Tools | 75 | Followed | Not stated | Not stated |
| Acid Tools | 68 | Followed | Not stated | Reviewed; time not stated |
| MagicBox.tools | 68 | Followed | Paid, $15.90 | Within 7 days |
| AI Tools Directory | 67 | Followed | Freemium | Free queue 30–90 days; paid 24–48 hours |
Three of the top ten, Fazier, Findly.tools and ToolPilot AI, only follow the link once their badge is on your site. That is true of 7 of the 40 followed-link directories overall. Put one badge snippet in your footer, then submit to those in one sitting. If you would rather not host badges, 15 of the 40 give a followed link without one on a free or freemium tier; they are on the no badge required list.
The full set of 40 is on the dofollow directories page, ordered by DR. The 18 directories with no fee at all are on the free directories page; only 5 of those 18 follow the link, and the rest, Product Hunt and Hacker News among them, are worth doing for traffic, not for DR.
Free tier or paid lane
Pay when the queue is long and the domain is strong. Of the 40 followed-link directories, 10 state an approval window of a week or less. Free queues on the busier sites run from two weeks to several months: AI Tools Directory quotes 30 to 90 days free and 24 to 48 hours paid, and Dev Hunt says free launches wait about six months. Under DR 15, a one-time $20 to $50 fee for a same-week followed link from a DR 70+ site is the cheapest link you will ever get. Past DR 30 the free queue is fine.
Fit before DR
A listing that never goes live is an afternoon lost. Most directories reject or bury products outside their niche: 14 of the 40 followed-link directories are AI tool directories and will not take a CRM with an AI button. Read the directory page for the accepted product types before submitting, or let the free rank plan do that pass for you.
2. Launch platforms where the link is earned
On 61 of the 82 nofollow directories, the link can be upgraded to followed by meeting a condition, so a nofollow listing is often a followed link you have not finished yet. The conditions fall into three kinds, and the directory pages state which applies:
- A badge on your site. 36 of the 61 unlock the followed link when their badge, or a plain link back, is live on your homepage or footer. That is entirely in your control.
- A top-three finish. 26 follow the link for products that place in the daily or weekly vote or clear an upvote threshold. That takes a launch day with an audience behind it. Without one, treat these as nofollow.
- A paid tier. 52 sell a guaranteed followed link. The advertised prices run from $3 to $147, and $19 one-time is the most common.
Do badge unlocks first, paid unlocks on the DR 70+ platforms if the fee is one-time, and vote-based unlocks only when you are launching anyway. In total 41 of the 126 directories need a badge for their best outcome, so decide once whether you will host badges and do all of them or none.
3. Partner pages and unlinked mentions
The next fastest links come from sites that already have a reason to mention you. These take an email each rather than a form, and they land at a higher rate than any cold outreach.
Integrations and partner directories
Every tool you integrate with has a marketplace or partner page, and every one is a followed link from a domain your competitors cannot buy. Build the integration, submit it, and the link comes with the listing. Platform showcases count too: Made with Bolt and Made with Lovable are both in our set with followed links.
Unlinked mentions
A site that already names your product will usually add a link when asked. Search your product name in quotes, exclude your own domain, and write to every page that mentions you without linking. The writer already chose to mention you, so you are asking for a two-second edit, not a favour.
4. Guest posts, podcasts and resource pages
Guest posts and podcast appearances get one link at a time from a domain in your niche, and one post on a DR 50 blog your customers read is worth more than twenty listings on unrelated DR 30 sites. They are slower than directories because each one is a pitch, a draft and a wait.
- Guest posts. Pitch a specific article to a blog your customers already read, with a title and three bullet points. Ask for a followed link in the byline or the body before you write it; some blogs nofollow guest links as policy.
- Podcasts. Show notes link to the guest’s site, almost always followed. A niche podcast is easier to land than a guest post and often sits on a higher-DR domain.
- Resource pages and broken links. Pages titled “tools for X” exist to link out. Find the ones in your niche, check them for dead links with a crawler, and offer your page as the replacement. The pitch is a favour to the page owner, which is why it works.
5. Something worth linking to
A free tool, an original dataset, a calculator or a template earns links without an email, because other writers cite useful things. This is the slowest method to start and the only one that compounds: a directory listing is one link, a dataset that gets quoted is a link every time it is quoted. It is also the only method on this list that works past DR 35, where directory listings stop moving the score.
Two rules make it work. Publish numbers nobody else has, from your own product data or from measuring something by hand. And keep it free and open with no sign-up, because writers do not link to a gated PDF. The Domain Rating checker on this site exists for this reason.
6. Press and journalist requests
Press links are the strongest and the least predictable, so they go last for a brand-new domain. A product nobody has heard of does not get covered because it launched. What gets covered is a number, a finding or a story that stands without the product.
Journalist request services, where reporters post questions and sources answer them, are the entry point. Answer only the requests you are qualified for, in three or four sentences with one specific fact, within an hour of them going up. Most answers get no link. The original data from method five is what makes the ones that land.
What not to do
Buying links, building link farms and counting the wrong number are the three ways a new site wastes its first months.
- Buying links from sellers. Paid link packages, private blog networks and guest-post marketplaces are the links that get a domain penalised, and the only tactic here that carries real risk. A directory listing fee is different: it pays for a listing on a site whose purpose is to list products, and the ones we track charge $1 to $66. Never pay for a nofollow listing.
- Profile and comment links. Lists of “200 free profile backlink sites” and web 2.0 blogs produce nofollow links from pages nobody reads. They cost an afternoon and move nothing.
- Counting backlinks instead of referring domains. Five hundred links from three domains is three links. Track referring domains and DR monthly, against the competitors you want to outrank.
- Submitting everywhere. Rejected listings deliver nothing. Fit first, then DR, then cost.
- Removing the badge. Directories that follow the link on the strength of a badge check it. Take it down and the link goes nofollow or the listing goes.
- Disavowing links you never built. Search engines ignore spam links you did not ask for. Disavow only if you bought links in the past or have a manual action in Search Console.
What to do next
- Check your DR on the Domain Rating checker and write the number down with today’s date.
- Submit to the ten followed-link directories that fit your product, starting from the table above. Pay to skip the queue on the DR 70+ ones if you are under DR 15.
- Decide on badges. If yes, put one snippet in your footer and work through the badge unlocks in a single sitting.
- Build the partner-page and unlinked-mention list while the listings are in review, then check DR again in a month. The free rank plan reads your site, scores all 126 directories against it and hands back the ten to submit this week with the listing text ready to paste.