How to get backlinks for a new startup, step by step

Short answer: On a new domain, get links in this order. First, from places your product already belongs: a launch on one to three platforms, a short list of niche directories where a person reviews each listing, and the marketplaces of tools you integrate with. Next, from one thing worth citing: a free tool, a template or a small data set. After that, from people who already mention you: unlinked brand mentions, podcasts and guest posts with plain anchor text. Skip anything you pay for, trade for or automate. Google's spam policies name all three as link spam.

Most "how to get backlinks" guides are lists of 30 tactics with no order. A new startup has a few hours a week and no budget, so order matters more than the list. Some links keep working for years. Others are a one-day spike. This guide sorts them, week by week, for the first three months.

What a backlink does for a new site

Google says it "uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl" (link best practices). For a domain that's a few weeks old, the second half of that sentence matters most. Google can't rank pages it hasn't crawled, and a few links from sites it already visits often help it find yours.

So your first links don't need to be strong. They need to be relevant and real: a page that a person chose to publish, on a site with readers in your niche. Our post on dofollow vs nofollow in 2026 explains why the rel value is a tiebreaker, not the first test.

The order at a glance

The "keeps working" column is a rule of thumb, not something Google publishes. It comes down to one question: will this page still exist, be indexed and be read in a year?

Weeks 1-2: launch, but read the link terms

A launch puts your product in front of people who look at new products for fun, and some of them write about what they find. It also gives you a product page on someone else's domain. The link terms differ a lot, so read them before you pick:

• Product Hunt: the biggest audience. Its Visit website button carried rel="noreferrer noopener ugc" when we checked a product page on 19 October 2026. Go there for the people, not the link. Our guide to launching on Product Hunt covers the day itself.
• Badge-gated boards: ScrollLaunch's pricing page says the free product-page link stays dofollow "while the badge is on your site". CodeHype's submit page says its paid Plus and Pro plans "require no website badge", and the free launch joins a 14-day queue. TinyLaunch's homepage says the dofollow link on its top 3 free launches "is granted when you embed the badge". Fazier's submit page asks free launches for a backlink on your homepage or footer.
• LaunchRanked (ours): free launches go live within 6 hours, and every approved listing gets a followed link on a permanent product page. No badge, no link back, and paid plans never buy the link. Launch free here.

A badge isn't a problem in itself. The trade is. A followed link that only stays followed while you link back is a link exchange, and Google's spam policies list "excessive link exchanges ('Link to me and I'll link to you')" as link spam. The word is "excessive", so one badge isn't a network of them. Still, don't make badge deals the base of your link profile. We go through the policy in is backlink exchange safe? and define the term in badge backlink.

Pick one to three platforms, not ten. Every launch asks your audience to show up again, and launching on several platforms without burning your audience is its own skill. Our launch platform pricing table puts the link rules side by side. If your users are developers, a Show HN post is worth more than most boards, for readers rather than links.

Weeks 2-6: directories a person reviews

Directories have a bad name for a reason. Google's spam policies list "low-quality directory or bookmark site links" as link spam. The fix isn't to skip directories. It's to be picky. A directory is worth a listing when:

1. It matches your niche or your buyers. A directory of AI tools for an AI tool, a list of Mac apps for a Mac app.
2. A person reviews submissions. If anything gets in, the links mean little.
3. Its listing pages are indexed. Search site: plus the directory's domain and your category. Google's search help explains the operator. If Google shows none of its pages, your listing won't help.
4. People use it. Some directories send real visitors, and that's worth having even when the link is nofollow.

For most startups, 30 to 100 well-matched directories is plenty. That's a heuristic, not a rule. Our directory list shows the link type and review process for each one we've checked, and directory submissions in 2026 explains how many to do and what to expect. Write each listing for the person reviewing it: how to write a directory listing that gets approved shows what that looks like. If you'd rather hand the forms off, that's our directory submission service.

Weeks 3-8: places your product already belongs

These links are easy to miss because they don't feel like link building. They're pages that should mention you anyway.

• Integration marketplaces. If you integrate with a tool that lists its integrations, ask to be listed. These pages get read by people who already use a tool you work with, so they're often your best-qualified visitors. Only list real integrations. Google's link spam examples include "partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking".
• Alternatives and comparison sites. Buyers compare products on sites like AlternativeTo. A listing there puts you on the page where a decision gets made.
• Your own footprint. Founder profiles, podcast guest pages, conference speaker pages, the site of your last project. Use your brand or URL as the link text.
• GitHub. If you have a public repo, put your site in it. Just know what you're getting: on a repo page we checked on 19 October 2026, both the website field and the links in the README carried rel="nofollow". Developers still find you there.

Check each new link in your browser: right-click, Inspect, read the rel attribute. Log it in a spreadsheet with the URL, the date and whether the page is indexed. You'll want that list in month three.

Weeks 4-12: build one thing worth linking to

Launches and directories are links you ask for. The links that keep coming are the ones people add on their own, because a page helped them or gave them something to cite. For a small team, that usually means one of three things:

• A free tool that does one job in your niche: a checker, a calculator, a generator. It keeps getting found and linked long after launch week.
• A template or checklist your buyers reuse and share.
• A small data set only you can publish: numbers from your own product, a survey of your users, or a count you made by hand. One clear finding beats a long report.

Make it useful on its own. Google's spam policies also list "creating low-value content primarily for the purposes of manipulating linking and ranking signals". A tool page built to attract links, with nothing behind it, is that. The free SEO tools on this site are an example of the approach: each one does one job, and its page explains the limits.

Ongoing: turn mentions into links

Once people know your product, some will write about it without linking. Asking them to add a link is among the easiest links you'll get, because they already chose to mention you. Here's a workflow that needs no paid tool:

1. Search for your brand, minus your own site. Put the name in quotes for an exact match and exclude your domain with a minus sign: "YourBrand" -site:yourbrand.com. Google's search help documents quotes, site: and the minus operator. Add a word like review or alternative to narrow it.
2. Triage what you find. Keep pages where a person wrote about you on a site with readers. Skip scraped or auto-generated pages, forum threads (those links are usually ugc anyway) and sites that mark every outbound link nofollow.
3. Ask once, briefly. Thank them, give the exact URL that fits what they wrote, and say why it helps their readers, for example a direct link to the feature they described. Don't ask for keyword-rich link text.
4. Log it. Note who you asked and when. One polite follow-up is fine. More than that isn't.

Our glossary entry on unlinked mentions covers the term and why the mention itself still has value.

The same rules apply to podcasts, guest posts and journalist requests. They're fine when someone publishes you because what you said is useful. They turn into link spam when the anchor text is the point: Google lists "links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites" among its examples. Let the link be your brand or your URL.

What to skip

Google's spam policies define link spam as "creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings", then list examples. The ones founders get pitched most:

• Buying links, including "exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links", "exchanging goods or services for links" and "sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link".
• Link exchanges at scale, and exchange networks between customers of the same tool.
• "Using automated programs or services to create links to your site." Bulk submission blasts and comment bots.
• Widget and footer links spread across many sites.
• Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature.

Paid placements aren't banned. The same policy page says buying and selling links "is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes", as long as the links are qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". Google's guide to qualifying outbound links explains the values. Pay for ads or newsletter spots if the audience is right. Just don't expect ranking credit from them.

How to see what you've earned

Search Console's Links report shows your top linking sites, your most linked pages and the most common link text. It's free and it's Google's own view. Two limits: Google says the report "isn't a comprehensive list of every link on your site" but a sample, and its tables stop at 1,000 rows. Our guide to Search Console reports for founders shows where it sits.

For other sites, third-party tools estimate links and authority. Our website authority checker shows Domain Rating, backlink counts and other signals side by side, each with its source. Treat those numbers as estimates. Before you spend time on a link, the backlink value calculator scores it from authority, rel, relevance and traffic with a formula you can see. It's a heuristic, and it says so.

Around week 12, look at your spreadsheet next to the Links report and your analytics. Which links sent visitors? Which pages got linked without you asking? Do more of what worked. For the wider plan these links fit into, see SEO for a new website: a 90-day plan.