120+ Free Backlink Sites: The Complete List by Category (2026)

Free backlinks still work in 2026, but only from sites with real traffic and editorial standards. The other kind (mass directories with a DA above 40 and nothing behind it) mostly get you a nofollow tag and a wasted afternoon.

This list pulls from actual site inventories: BacklinkForMe's own free backlink sites page, Locafy's business directory research, and the named platforms Ahrefs and Backlinko point to in their own link building guides. Every site below is a real, currently operating platform, organized by what kind of link you actually get: a directory listing, a profile link, an app or package profile page, a guest post byline, a forum signature, or a press mention. Where a source reported a DA or DR figure, it's included and labeled with its scale. Treat every number as directional. Moz's DA and Ahrefs' DR are different scoring systems, and third-party estimates drift over time, so re-check anything you're about to spend real time on.

How to use this list without wasting a weekend

A few rules before you start submitting:

• Check the follow status before you count on the link. Most of the sites below are nofollow (Google Business Profile, Yelp, Reddit, Pinterest, and nearly every social platform are nofollow by default). Nofollow links still drive referral traffic, brand mentions, and indexing signals, they just don't pass PageRank the way a dofollow editorial link does.
• Domain authority above 40 is the practical floor. Below that, a listing rarely gets crawled often enough to matter, and it's more likely to sit next to spam.
• One submission per directory, real business information every time. Directories cross-reference NAP (name, address, phone) data. Inconsistent details across listings actively hurt local SEO instead of helping it.
• Guest posts and press mentions need a real pitch, not a link drop. The sites in that section below reject submissions that read like an ad.

Business and local directories

The foundation tier: directories built around business listings rather than content. Most are nofollow, but they're still worth claiming because they establish NAP consistency, which Google and Bing both use as a local ranking signal, and because a claimed Google Business Profile or Bing Places listing shows up directly in map and local search results regardless of link value.

Source for the directory-tier data: Locafy's business directory list.

Industry-specific directories worth checking

If your business fits one of these verticals, a niche directory listing usually outperforms a general one because the traffic is pre-qualified:

• Legal: Avvo, FindLaw, Justia, Lawyers.com, Martindale-Hubbell
• Medical: Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Vitals, WebMD provider directory, RateMDs
• Home services: HomeAdvisor, Houzz, Porch, BuildZoom
• Restaurants: TripAdvisor, OpenTable, MenuPages
• Real estate: Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, Trulia
• Automotive: Cars.com, AutoTrader, DealerRater, CarGurus
• Hospitality: Booking.com, Hotels.com, Expedia
• Financial: NerdWallet, Bankrate, WalletHub, SmartAsset

Startup, SaaS, and tech product directories

Purpose-built for software and startups. These matter more for a SaaS or app than a general business directory does, because the traffic is buyers actively comparing tools.

Source for this section: cross-referenced from multiple 2026 SaaS-directory roundups (MarketingLad, GetIntel, LaunchDirectories) that independently listed the same core set of platforms.

Web 2.0 and content publishing platforms

Free accounts on established publishing platforms. The link usually lives in your author bio or profile, not the article body, so the SEO value is smaller per link, but the platforms themselves have enormous domain authority and often outrank a brand-new site for its own name in search results.

Source: BacklinkForMe's free backlink sites page.

Social profiles and bookmarking sites

Almost every social bookmarking site went nofollow years ago, including Reddit, Pinterest, and Diigo. They're on this list anyway because they still drive referral clicks, help new content get indexed faster, and (for Pinterest and Reddit specifically) can send meaningful direct traffic when a post actually resonates in a relevant subreddit or board.

Note: Pocket was shut down by Mozilla in July 2025 and Delicious has been gone for years. Older "free backlink sites" lists still floating around the web still include both. Don't waste time on either.

Q&A and community platforms

Real question-and-answer traffic, nofollow links, but genuinely useful for topical authority and referral traffic when you're answering, not just dropping a link.

Niche forums

Forum links are mostly nofollow now and low individual SEO value, but active, moderated forums in your exact niche still generate referral traffic and relationship-building that turns into real backlinks later (someone from the forum links to you from their own site).

Avoid mass forum-signature link building. Google's spam guidelines specifically call out low-effort forum comment links as a manipulative link scheme, and most moderators ban accounts that post links without participating in the actual discussion.

Guest post opportunities (real, currently open)

Genuine editorial sites that publish outside contributors, sourced from Backlinko's and independent 2026 guest-posting roundups. These require an actual pitch and a real piece of writing, not a submission form.

For niches not covered here, the reliable way to find current guest-post targets is a targeted search: "your niche" + "write for us", "your niche" + "guest post guidelines", or "your niche" + "become a contributor". Verify the site still accepts posts before pitching. Editorial guest-post programs open and close often.

Journalist and press link opportunities

HARO shut down in 2024 after Cision rebranded it as Connectively, then wound the platform down; the HARO trademark was later acquired by Featured.com. If you're looking for the "answer a journalist's question, get quoted with a link" model, these are the platforms actually running it in 2026:

Also worth doing directly: local newspaper and trade publication websites. They cover fewer stories than major outlets and are far more likely to run a pitch from a local business or a genuine industry expert, with a dofollow link in the byline or story.

Design and developer showcases

If you build products, sites, or visual work, these platforms function as both a portfolio and a backlink source.

App and platform profile pages (the category most free-backlink lists miss)

Most "free backlink sites" roundups stop at directories, guest posts, and social profiles. They skip an entire category: the profile page you get automatically when you publish something real on a developer or package platform. These take more effort than filling out a directory form (you need an actual extension, app, or package to publish), but a few of them are dofollow from domains with real authority, which puts them ahead of most of the directories above.

Follow-status notes: GitHub, npm, and PyPI were confirmed by pulling the live page source directly (all three carry an explicit nofollow attribute on the profile/project website link). Docker Hub's Source Repository link was confirmed the same way and carries no nofollow attribute. Chrome Web Store's dofollow status is per Huge Software's writeup on the tactic. Google Play Store and Pinterest Business weren't directly inspectable (both render through JavaScript), so they're marked nofollow on pattern consistency with Google's and Pinterest's other profile surfaces rather than a confirmed source read, flagged here rather than stated as fact.

Product Hunt, Crunchbase, AngelList (Wellfound), Dribbble, Behance, and SlideShare belong in this same category by function, they're already covered above in the Startup/SaaS directories, Web 2.0, and Design and developer showcases sections, so they aren't repeated here.

Finding resource-page links (a technique, not a fixed list)

Resource pages are curated lists of links on a specific topic, published by universities, industry associations, and established blogs. There's no fixed list of these because they're created constantly and go stale fast, but the search-operator method Backlinko and other link-building guides use is reliable:

1. Search intitle:"resources" + "your topic" or inurl:resources + "your topic".
2. Check your closest competitors' backlink profiles for pages with "resources," "links," or "tools" in the title, then pitch the same page.
3. University department and library pages (.edu domains) frequently maintain public resource lists and will add a genuinely useful link if you email the page owner directly.
4. Once you find one resource page in your niche, others in the same space often follow the same structure, so the first one you land usually leads to several more.

If you'd rather not run this process manually every quarter, it's the kind of repeatable research-and-outreach work that fits into a broader custom workflow automation setup, where the prospecting and first-touch outreach draft get automated and a human only handles the actual pitch and relationship.

FAQ

Are free backlink sites actually worth using in 2026? Some are, most aren't. Directories and platforms with real traffic and editorial review (business directories with active moderation, SaaS directories like G2 or Capterra, guest-post sites with an actual editor) still help. Mass-submission directory lists with hundreds of low-quality sites mostly produce nofollow links next to spam and do little for rankings.

What's the difference between a dofollow and nofollow backlink? A dofollow link passes PageRank and ranking signal to your site. A nofollow link (marked with rel="nofollow" or the newer rel="sponsored"/rel="ugc" attributes) tells Google not to pass that signal, though Google has said since 2020 it may still use nofollow links as a general signal. Most free directories and nearly all social platforms are nofollow by default.

Is Google Business Profile worth claiming even though the link is nofollow? Yes. It's the single highest-impact free listing on this list, not because of link value, but because it directly controls how your business shows up in Google Maps and local search results.

How many directories should I actually submit to? Quality over volume. A commonly cited 2026 benchmark is 50 to 100 directories with real moderation and a domain authority of 30 or higher, relevant to your niche or location, rather than submitting to every directory that will accept a listing.

Do guest posts still work for link building? Yes, but the bar is higher than it was five years ago. A guest post needs to be genuinely useful to the host site's audience, not a thinly disguised ad with one link. Sites like Search Engine Journal and MarTech Series reject submissions that read like marketing copy.

What happened to HARO? HARO was acquired by Cision and rebranded as Connectively in 2023, then Cision shut the platform down in late 2024. Featured.com acquired the HARO name and trademark in 2025 and now runs the journalist-request model those two platforms used to run.

Can automation help with backlink outreach? The research and prospecting parts (finding relevant sites, checking contact info, drafting a first-touch pitch) are automatable. The actual relationship and pitch still need a human. If you're building this at scale across dozens of targets a month, an AI automation agency can wire the research and drafting into a repeatable pipeline while keeping a human in the loop for the send.

Are social bookmarking sites still worth it if they're all nofollow? For direct SEO ranking, not much. For getting new content indexed faster and picking up referral traffic from a relevant subreddit or Pinterest board, yes, they still do that job.

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Sources: BacklinkForMe, Free Backlink Sites, Locafy, Best Business Directories for Local SEO, Ahrefs, How To Get Backlinks, Backlinko, Link Building Strategies, Qwoted, Connectively (HARO) Is Going Away