Profile Backlinks: We Checked 33 Profile Pages on 32 Platforms. 5 Had a Normal Followed Link
Profile creation is the first tactic on most free backlink lists, and the lists run to 100, 200, even 293 sites. So we opened real public profiles on 32 of the platforms those lists recommend, from GitHub and LinkedIn to Pinterest and Gravatar, and read what the website link actually does in the HTML. We also tallied 12 ranking guides on the topic and checked Google's own wording. Here is which profiles are worth five minutes, and which are worth nothing.
Profile backlinks are links from a profile page you create on another site: a social network, a developer community, a portfolio site or a business listing, usually in its website field. They're the first thing many "free backlinks" lists tell you to build, and some sellers package hundreds of them. We created nothing and bought nothing. On November 13, 2026, we opened 33 real public profiles on 32 of the platforms those lists recommend and read what the website link actually does in the raw HTML.
The short answer: 9 platforms blocked us outright, and of the 24 profiles we could read, 10 had no crawlable link in the HTML at all, 5 marked the link nofollow or ugc, 4 sent it through the platform's own redirect, and only 5 had a plain, followed link. One public profile per platform, read without running JavaScript, so treat this as a snapshot, not a census.
That doesn't make profiles useless. It means they're worth doing for a different reason than the lists claim.
What we checked, and how#
We picked the platforms that keep appearing on "profile creation sites" lists: the big social networks, developer and design communities, publishing platforms and a few identity sites. For each one we found a well-known public profile with a website filled in (GitHub's Dan Abramov, Stack Overflow's Jon Skeet, The New York Times on Pinterest, J.K. Rowling's Goodreads author page, and so on) and fetched the page once with a normal desktop browser user agent.
For every page we recorded four things:
- whether the website link exists in the HTML as an ordinary link, or only appears after scripts run
- the exact
relvalue on that link, if any (our dofollow vs nofollow explainer covers what each value means) - whether the link points straight at the site or through a platform redirector such as t.co
- whether the page itself is noindexed, via the robots meta tag or the X-Robots-Tag header
We used famous accounts on purpose. If a platform gives anyone a followed link, it will show on a big profile too. If it doesn't, an account you open today won't get a better deal.
The results, platform by platform#
| Platform | What the website link does |
|---|---|
| Stack Overflow | Followed, rel="me noreferrer" (a very high-reputation user; we didn't test a new account) |
| dev.to | Followed, rel="noopener me" |
Followed, rel="noopener noreferrer", straight to nytimes.com |
|
| Goodreads (author page) | Followed, rel="noopener noreferrer" |
| Keybase | Followed, rel="me" (identity proofs, not a free-text website field) |
| GitHub | rel="nofollow me" |
| Gravatar | rel="me nofollow noreferrer" |
| Behance | rel="ugc" |
| About.me | rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" |
| Flickr | rel="noreferrer nofollow" |
| X | Through t.co, and also nofollow |
| LinkedIn (company and person) | Through linkedin.com/redir/redirect |
| WordPress.org | Through a profiles.wordpress.org redirect, and also nofollow |
| YouTube, Substack, Linktree, Vimeo, Disqus | Not in the HTML; the link is built by scripts or only in embedded page data |
| Hacker News, Tumblr, SoundCloud, Dribbble, Issuu | No website link in the HTML of the profile we tested |
| Medium, Quora, Product Hunt, Crunchbase, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Slideshare, DeviantArt | Blocked: bot challenge, 403 or login wall |
Three things stand out.
The platforms with the most authority are the ones that protect their links hardest. GitHub, X, LinkedIn and WordPress.org all either nofollow the website link or route it through their own redirector. These are exactly the "DA 90+" names that make profile lists look valuable.
A third of the platforms wouldn't show us the page at all. Nine of 33 pages came back as a Cloudflare challenge, a 403 or a login wall. A crawler is not a person with a session cookie, and if a platform makes a plain request jump through a challenge, you can't assume Googlebot is reading your profile the way you see it while logged in.
None of the readable profiles were noindexed. That's the good news, and it's why profiles still have a job. One aside: our first Behance pick (a large brand account) did carry noindex in both the robots meta tag and the header, so a profile being indexable is not guaranteed even on the same site.
What we couldn't test
We ran no JavaScript. Google does render pages, so the links YouTube, Substack, Linktree, Vimeo and Disqus build with scripts may still be seen after rendering. On those, "not in the HTML" means "not in the first pass", not "invisible forever". For SoundCloud, Dribbble and Issuu we couldn't confirm the account had a website set at all. And a platform can treat a big account differently from a new one; Stack Overflow is the obvious case to recheck with your own profile.
What the profile creation guides tell you#
We also read the guides that rank for "profile backlinks" and "profile creation sites". We tried 14 and could read 12 (one was behind a bot check, one was a 404).
The pattern is familiar from our test of 169 forum links and our directory checks: long lists, a ranking claim, and very little checking.
- 9 of 12 publish a numbered list of sites, from 28 up to 293.
- 8 of 12 say profile links are dofollow or help rankings.
- 6 of 12 say, somewhere on the page, that most of these links are nofollow. Several guides make both claims.
- Only 2 include data of their own, and 7 of the 8 that claim a ranking benefit show none. TheGuideX loaded the 1,133 sites on older lists and found 506 still worked. That is the most useful number we found in any guide.
- Only 2 link to Google's documentation.
- 8 of 12 also say the real value is brand, entity or referral traffic rather than rankings, which is closer to what our test shows.
What Google says#
Google's spam policies define link spam as "the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings." The examples include "Low-quality directory or bookmark site links" and "Using automated programs or services to create links to your site." The policy doesn't use the word "profile", but the user-generated spam section lists "Spammy accounts on hosting services that anyone can register for." A package of 300 profiles made by a tool is exactly that.
On the links themselves, Google's page on qualifying outbound links says: "Links marked with these rel attributes will generally not be followed." In 2019 Google added that nofollow, ugc and sponsored are "treated as hints", so a nofollow link isn't guaranteed to count for nothing. But "generally not" is not a strategy to build on.
So what is a profile actually good for?#
Nothing in our test says profiles are worthless. It says they're not a link building channel. Here's what they do well.
1. They fill your brand search results. When someone searches your company name, the profile pages that rank under your own site are usually LinkedIn, X, GitHub, Crunchbase, YouTube. You want those to be yours, current, and pointing at the right URL. That's reputation work, and it matters to buyers more than to Google.
2. They confirm who you are. Many platforms mark the website link with rel="me", which is a public way of saying "this profile and this site belong to the same person". Consistent profiles that point at your site, plus sameAs links in your Organization schema, help search engines connect your brand to its accounts.
3. A few of them send real people. A GitHub profile for a developer tool, a Dribbble or Behance page for a design studio, a Goodreads page for an author, a Product Hunt page on launch day. If your buyers actually browse a platform, a profile there earns clicks whatever its rel value says.
4. A handful pass a normal link. Pinterest, Goodreads author pages, dev.to and (for established users) Stack Overflow gave a followed link in our test. If one of them genuinely fits your business, fill it in properly. Five links from five platforms won't move rankings, but they cost nothing.
A 30-minute profile checklist#
Instead of a 293-site list, do this once:
- Pick 5 to 8 platforms your buyers actually use. For most B2B companies that's LinkedIn, X, YouTube, GitHub (if technical), Crunchbase and one niche community. Skip anything you'd never visit.
- Use the same name, logo, one-line description and URL everywhere. Consistency is the whole point for brand search.
- Link to your homepage, or to the page you'd want a stranger to land on. Not a keyword-stuffed inner page.
- Add each profile to your site's Organization schema as
sameAs, and link back to them from your site footer or about page. - Check one profile's HTML yourself. View source, find your URL, read the
rel. It takes a minute and replaces every "dofollow" claim on every list. - Don't buy profile packages. A seller making hundreds of accounts with a tool is doing what Google's policy describes, on platforms that nofollow the link anyway.
Then stop. Every hour past that is better spent on links someone else chooses to give you.
Where the links that count come from#
The links that move rankings come from pages you don't control: an article that cites your data, a resource page that lists your tool, a writer who names your brand and agrees to link it. Those take outreach: finding the right pages, finding the right person, writing an email worth answering, and following up.
That's the part GenLink automates. It finds relevant sites in your niche, writes personal outreach to the people who run them, and follows up from your own inbox, so you build editorial links instead of profiles. You can start free.
The short version#
Profile backlinks are worth an afternoon, not a strategy. In our check of 33 profiles on 32 platforms, only 5 had a plain followed link, and the big-authority names (GitHub, X, LinkedIn, WordPress.org) all nofollowed the link or wrapped it in a redirect. Set up the handful of profiles your buyers use, keep them consistent, point them at your site, and put your link building effort into pages that choose to link to you. If you're starting from zero, our guide to free backlinks that are actually worth getting covers the other options worth your time.
Frequently asked questions#
What are profile backlinks? Profile backlinks are links to your website from a profile you create on another site, such as a social network, a developer community, a portfolio site or a business listing. The link usually sits in the profile's website field or bio.
Are profile backlinks dofollow? Mostly not. Of 24 public profiles we could read on November 13, 2026, only 5 had a plain followed link (Stack Overflow, dev.to, Pinterest, Goodreads author pages and Keybase). GitHub, Gravatar, Behance, About.me and Flickr used nofollow or ugc, and X, LinkedIn and WordPress.org routed the link through their own redirect.
Do profile backlinks help SEO? Not much for rankings. Most are nofollow, redirected or not in the HTML at all, and Google says links with those rel values "will generally not be followed." They do help your brand search results, help search engines connect your accounts to your site, and can send referral traffic from platforms your buyers use.
Are profile creation sites spam? Creating a real profile on a platform you use is not spam. Creating hundreds of thin profiles with a tool just to get links matches what Google's spam policies call "Using automated programs or services to create links to your site" and "Spammy accounts on hosting services that anyone can register for."
How many profile backlinks should I build? Five to eight, on platforms your audience actually uses, filled in consistently with the same name, description and URL. Beyond that you're adding nofollow links on sites nobody in your market visits.
Should I buy a profile backlinks package? No. Packages are usually made with automation on low-quality sites, most of the links are nofollow anyway, and the pattern is exactly what Google's link spam policy describes. Spend the money on outreach for editorial links instead.
How do I check whether a profile link is followed? Open the profile, view the page source, search for your URL and read the rel attribute on that link. If it says nofollow, ugc or sponsored, or the link goes through a redirect domain like t.co, it isn't a normal followed link.
