Getting listed in a software company's partner directory is often sold as an easy SEO win. Sometimes it is. Often the link is marked so search engines ignore it, and nobody tells you which is which. So we opened the HTML on more than thirty of them and read the actual code.
The 60-second check anyone can run
A link only passes ranking credit if the site owner lets it. The mechanism is the rel attribute on the link, and Google's own documentation on qualifying outbound links sets out the three values that tell a search engine to discount it: nofollow, sponsored and ugc.
You do not need a paid tool to read it. Here is the whole method:
noopener and noreferrer look alarming but have nothing to do with SEO. They are browser security and privacy attributes. A link marked rel="noopener" is a perfectly normal followed link.
What we found across 30+ directories
We ran this over several days against software partner directories in categories relevant to UK small businesses: automation platforms, CRMs, clinic practice-management systems, short-term-rental property managers, telephony providers and marketing tools.
Nine carried a verified followed link. That number is lower than the marketing around partner programmes would suggest, and the failures were not random — they clustered into predictable categories.
Two findings genuinely surprised us.
A single profile can carry several links, not one. On one automation platform's directory, one partner's profile page linked out to their website, two separate booking pages, their homepage with a tracking parameter, and their newsletter. Five separate followed links from one listing. We had assumed one.
Some carry deep links, not just homepage links. On one marketing platform's expert directory, a listed agency's profile linked to six individual case-study pages on their own site. Deep links to content pages are considerably more useful than another link to a homepage that already has plenty.
A pattern also emerged that makes this quicker: several of the directories we checked are built on the same third-party platform, and they share a page structure. Once you identify one, its siblings behave identically — so the check generalises rather than having to be repeated blind every time.
Three categories that are nofollowed by design
If a programme falls into one of these, you can usually skip the HTML check. The answer will be no.
| Programme type | How to recognise it | Why the link won't count |
|---|---|---|
| Affiliate / referral | You get a referral code, a tracking dashboard and a payout per signup | Google asks publishers to mark affiliate links rel="sponsored". Most route through a redirect that never links to your domain at all |
| User-generated profiles | Anyone can create a profile without review — community and template galleries | Open submission means spam risk, so platforms apply rel="ugc nofollow" across the board. We confirmed exactly this on one automation platform's creator profiles |
| "Ambassador" schemes | Aimed at customers rather than suppliers; rewards per referral | It is an affiliate programme with a friendlier name. One clinic software vendor's ambassador page pays per practitioner referred — commercial, not editorial |
None of this makes those programmes worthless. A listing where your buyers already spend time has value whether or not it passes ranking credit, and it is still a citation an AI assistant may read when someone asks it about that software — which is a different visibility problem worth understanding separately. Just do not let anyone sell it to you as a backlink.
The gates nobody puts on the application page
This was the more useful half of the exercise. Finding a directory with followed links is easy. Getting into it is where the real filtering happens, and the requirements are frequently not on the page with the "Apply" button.
One payments platform is a good illustration. Its directory is well built, the listing is a genuine benefit of joining, and the link is followed. The entry requirement, published in its documentation rather than on the application page, is a minimum of two certified individuals. If you are a sole trader, that is not a hurdle to work towards — it is a wall, and it is worth knowing before you spend an afternoon on the form.
The more useful habit, when nothing is published: read the profiles of the partners already listed. One telephony provider publishes no requirements whatsoever and has an open registration form — but every listed partner is a certified agency with years of platform-specific accreditation. The published bar and the real bar were completely different, and only the existing listings showed it.
Two mistakes that cost us a day
Both are worth repeating because they produce false negatives that look like dead ends.
We guessed URLs. Sixteen consecutive guessed paths — /integrations, /partners, /marketplace, /apps — returned 404. Every one. Reading each site's own navigation menu found the real paths immediately, including one platform still using flat .html filenames, which no amount of guessing would have produced. A 404 from a guessed path looks identical to "this company has no partner programme", and it is not the same thing at all.
We recorded blocks that were not blocks. Four pages appeared to refuse automated requests. Three of them opened normally once the request identified itself as an ordinary browser rather than a script. Only one had genuine bot protection. If you are checking at any scale, that distinction matters — otherwise you will write off opportunities that were never closed.
What to actually do with this
- Start with software you already pay for. Most partner programmes want you to be a customer, and you already are. That requirement is met before you begin.
- Run the 60-second check before you spend an hour on an application. Open one existing partner's profile, view source, read the
rel. - Read who is already listed. If they are all large accredited agencies, the unpublished bar is high regardless of what the form asks for.
- Sort by what you can pass today. Free signup and website-plus-domain-email requirements can be done this week. Anything needing certified staff or contactable client references goes on a later list, not the discard pile.
- Do not dismiss the nofollowed ones entirely. Reclassify them. A listing in front of buyers with intent is worth something — just not the thing it was sold as.
None of this is quick, and it does not replace the basics. If your own site is not technically sound, links pointing at it will not rescue it — that is a separate and more foundational piece of work. But for a small business with no budget for link building, partner directories are one of the few routes where the link is earned by being a genuine customer and doing a genuine thing, rather than paid for.
If you want a second pair of eyes on where your site actually stands before spending time on any of this, our free SEO audit covers the technical foundations first — and we will tell you plainly if links are not your problem.
Method note: every finding above comes from opening the pages and reading their HTML directly during the week of 1 September 2026. No third-party backlink tool was used, because we did not have one available — which turned out to be a reasonable constraint, since reading the rel attribute is the ground truth those tools are reporting on anyway. Directory structures change; re-check before acting on anything here.