Why the distinction matters
A directory listing takes fifteen minutes and is worth a little. A useful answer in a community takes months of participation and can be worth more than everything else you do. Both appear on the same lists under the same heading, which is why so much link building time is spent badly.
Sorting the work by type makes the trade-off visible before you start. It also makes the order obvious: the cheap, permanent, low-risk things first, the slow and valuable things continuously, and the tactics that stopped working not at all.
The 8 types
CSR and badge schemes
A group of directories will list you only once their badge is live on your own site. That trade is not the same as an earned link, and it is worth understanding before you spend an afternoon on one.
23 catalogued · 100% pass a following link · 100% suitable for a first campaign
Industry and audience listings
Some listings are not open to everyone. You get in because of what your business is, who it hires or what it offers, and that gate is exactly what makes them worth more than a general directory.
24 catalogued · 79% pass a following link · 88% suitable for a first campaign
Directory submission sites
Directories are the oldest form of link building and the one with the widest gap between the useful and the worthless. This is how to tell them apart, and what a submission is actually worth in 2026.
164 catalogued · 89% pass a following link · 86% suitable for a first campaign
Profile creation sites
Profile links are the easiest links to build, which is exactly why most of them are worthless. Here is the version of the tactic that survives, and how it connects to being found by name.
101 catalogued · 67% pass a following link · 85% suitable for a first campaign
Social bookmarking sites
Bookmarking was a genuine link source for about a decade and then stopped being one. This page explains what changed, what still works in its place, and why the lists you find are largely obsolete.
20 catalogued · 65% pass a following link · 95% suitable for a first campaign
Article submission sites
The article directory era is over, but publishing platforms are not. The difference is whether the platform has readers, and it decides everything about whether the effort is worth it.
56 catalogued · 86% pass a following link · 59% suitable for a first campaign
Web 2.0 sites
Free blogging platforms are the most abused link tactic still in circulation. They also have a legitimate use, and the difference between the two is easy to state.
20 catalogued · 90% pass a following link · 95% suitable for a first campaign
Forum posting sites
Forum links have the worst reputation of any link source, earned by a decade of signature spam. The communities themselves are still there, and they are one of the few places where a link is a by-product of something useful.
119 catalogued · 78% pass a following link · 87% suitable for a first campaign
A sensible order to work in
- First, the floor. The national and industry directories your competitors are already in. Twenty to forty listings, done once, done properly.
- Then, your name. Profiles on the platforms that rank when someone searches your company. This is as much reputation work as link building.
- Then, the writing. Publishing platforms, if you were going to write anyway. Skip it if you were not.
- Continuously, the communities. The slowest and the most valuable, and the only one that brings customers directly.
What is missing from that list is anything that promises volume. There is no step where three hundred links appear, because that step is the one that causes the problems the rest of this site exists to avoid.
What sits behind this
This category is one of 22. The whole catalogue holds 527 places across 5 markets, and every one of them is written up step by step in both English and Danish.
The work behind the list
- 133 of them have been opened and checked against the page that is actually there now, not just imported from a list.
- 156 of them have a link straight to the form, so you are not hunting for it on their front page.
- Authority figures from Ahrefs are refreshed on the first of every month. Last run 1 September 2026.
What we warn you about
A list you scraped yourself will not tell you what does not work. This one does, and that is usually where the hours go.
- 26 of them only count your submission once you have put a link back to them on your own site. That is in the guide before you start.
- 7 of them turned out not to be directories at all. They are flagged rather than deleted, because they can still be an opportunity.
- 10 of them have stopped responding. They carry a warning rather than wasting your time.
- 72 of them pass nofollow. We say so, including when the directory itself claims otherwise.
20 of the 527 can be opened and worked through without paying anything. They are not a selection of the weak ones.
What we do not cover
Paid link placements, private blog networks and automated submission are outside what this catalogue is for. Not on principle alone: they are the tactics that produce the link profiles that later need cleaning up, and cleaning up costs more than the links did.