Free dofollow backlink for your startup or agency

Getting a backlink costs money now. Not a lot per listing, but it compounds fast. You start submitting to directories at $9 here, $19 there, $29 for a featured slot, $49 for a "premium" placement. Three weeks in and you have spent several hundred dollars across a mix of directories, most of which pass nofollow links, some of which have domain ratings so low they contribute nothing, and a few that are genuinely useful.

This is the reality of backlink building for early-stage founders. The market has fragmented into hundreds of directories built specifically to extract small fees from people who know they need backlinks but do not have the budget to be selective. The SEO value varies wildly and is rarely disclosed upfront. You are often buying discovery more than actual link equity.

We know this because we have been doing it for Tarkle.

What we built and why

Tarkle runs a directory for startups and agencies at tarkle.com/startups. Every listing gets a permanent dofollow backlink on tarkle.com. No account required, no payment, no attribution. You submit, we review within 48 hours, and if your product or agency is legitimate you get listed.

When we launched the directory, tarkle.com was DR30. It is DR33 now and still climbing. We publish comparison articles, build backlinks consistently, and every startup listed in our directory sits on the same growing domain.

The reason we keep it free is simple. Directory fees are a tax on founders who are already stretched thin. We have the infrastructure. We built the directory for our own SEO purposes. Opening it for free costs us nothing and helps people in the same position we were a year ago.