Tested List · Updated October 16, 2026
Which free platforms still pass a followed link.
Link sellers charge for “DA 90+ foundation links” that are free profile pages on big platforms. We built them ourselves on a brand-new site in October 2026 and read every page the way Googlebot does. About 55 platforms tried; 16 passed.
Method
What “passed” means here.
Each platform got a real account and real content for a six-month-old review site we run: a profile linking the homepage, or an original 400 to 900 word article on blogs and mini-sites, never copied between platforms. Then each page was fetched as Googlebot.
A platform passed when the page returned 200, carried no noindex (in the HTML or the headers) and the link carried no nofollow, ugc or sponsored. That is the minimum for a link to count. Whether Google indexes each page is a separate question, and we re-check that two weeks after the pages went up.
Passed
Followed link, indexable page.
Profiles link the homepage only. Blogs and mini-sites each get one original article linking the homepage and one genuinely useful guide, not a sales page.
| Platform | Type | What goes on it | Trap |
|---|---|---|---|
| MyAnimeList | Profile | Homepage in "Also available at" | The About Me link is nofollow; only that field counts |
| Disqus | Profile | Homepage in Website | |
| IntenseDebate | Profile | Homepage in Blog / Website | |
| MaplePrimes | Profile | Homepage in Personal Web Site, short bio | |
| APSense | Profile | Homepage in Website | The link renders with a typo'd rel attribute, so it is followed today; the site could fix that any time |
| WordPress.com | Blog | One original article | |
| Tumblr | Blog | One original post | Turn on the custom theme, or the blog redirects into the app |
| Blogger | Blog | One original article | "Visible to search engines" must be on |
| GitBook | Docs site | One original how-to page | New organizations start on a paid trial that falls back to free; check the site stays public |
| Google Sites | Mini-site | One original page | Inside a Workspace it defaults to domain-only viewers: set it to Public |
| Strikingly | Mini-site | One original page | Template footers carry a fake phone and email: switch to the plainest footer |
| Weebly | Mini-site | One original page | Delete the theme's sample pages and the footer with a made-up address |
| Wix | Mini-site | One original page | Plain pasted links are stripped; add links through Wix's link dialog |
| Pearltrees | Notes | Two or three original notes in one collection | Only notes count; collections and bookmarks are noindexed |
| Vercel and GitHub Pages (two platforms: your own static site) | Tool or dataset | A small tool or an open dataset | The best of the lot, because it can be genuinely useful |
Wait
Blocked for new accounts. Re-check later.
These pass for established accounts but not for a brand-new one, so a fresh profile on them gives nothing yet.
| Platform | What we saw |
|---|---|
| Linktree | New accounts: page noindex, links nofollow |
| Substack | New publications and posts noindexed; the links themselves carry no rel |
| Ko-fi | Page noindex, links nofollow |
| Indie Hackers | Page noindex, bio link nofollow |
| Carrd | New site held "temporarily offline" for account review |
| Webflow | Will not publish until the account email is verified |
| Patreon | Creator page not launched in our test |
Skip
Nofollow, noindex, or no link field at all.
Letterboxd, Unsplash, Designspiration, Goodreads, Kickstarter, Inkitt, Pastebin, Twitch, Indiegogo, YouTube descriptions, GitHub profiles, Gravatar, Flickr profiles, Speaker Deck, Medium, Telegraph, Mastodon, Bandcamp, Behance, about.me, Buy Me a Coffee, HackerNoon, Hackster, Hashnode, DEV profiles, Vimeo, SlideShare, Over-blog, Webnode, Smore, Authory, Passes, TED.
Two more to avoid: a document platform whose profile route silently starts a team trial that renews at US$5,000 a year, and a review platform with the same trap. Do not start a paid trial to get a profile.
Honest Expectation
What these links will and will not do.
These are low-authority links. They give a new site a crawlable footprint and a few followed links while real ones are earned. They will not move a competitive ranking. The niche leader we studied in our outreach research owed its position to about 20 editorial links, not to profiles.
The one free option that can earn links on its own is the last row of the table: a small tool or dataset on a free host. That is the linkable asset idea at its cheapest.
FAQ
Common questions.
Do free profile and web 2.0 links still work in 2026?
Some still pass a followed link on an indexable page: 16 of about 55 platforms we tested in October 2026. They are low-authority links that help a new site get crawled; they do not rank a site on their own.
Is a link from a high-DA platform like Medium or TED valuable?
The platform's Domain Authority belongs to the platform, not to a new profile page on it. In our test, Medium, TED, Goodreads, Kickstarter and many others either nofollowed the link or noindexed the page, so it passed nothing.
Should I pay a seller for foundation or profile links?
Every foundation-link package we audited used the same free platforms listed here, and most of the links were nofollow, noindexed, dead or never indexed. You can build the ones that work yourself in an evening.
Quoting this list? Please cite AnchorApe, “Free profile links that still pass credit”, updated October 16, 2026, https://anchorape.com/research/free-profile-links.