155+ Profile Creation Sites for SEO in 2026

Verified list organized by Domain Authority, link type, approval speed, and category. Use this guide to build a diverse, high-quality backlink profile step by step.

Important: Domain Authority (DA) is a Moz metric that changes regularly. All figures are approximate reference points. Dofollow status can also change with platform policy updates. Always verify before building your strategy around a platform.

Why Profile Backlinks Still Matter for SEO in 2026

Profile backlinks are often dismissed as low-value — but that assumption is wrong. Here is why they deserve a dedicated place in your off-page strategy:

• Authority Signals: High-DA platforms like LinkedIn (DA 96), GitHub (DA 91), and ResearchGate (DA 87) pass real link equity. One DA 90+ link can outperform dozens of low-quality directory submissions.
• Natural Link Patterns: Profile links are an organic part of the web ecosystem. They look natural to Google’s algorithms, unlike mass link schemes that risk penalties.
• Referral Traffic: Active profiles on Quora, ProductHunt, and Medium send real visitors to your site — improving engagement signals that also factor into rankings.
• Portfolio Diversification: Profile links span dozens of niches and site types, helping build a diverse, resilient backlink profile.

How to Evaluate Profile Creation Sites: 5 Key Metrics

1. Domain Authority (DA)

Target sites with DA 50+ as your priority. Sites below DA 20 pass minimal link equity. The sweet spot for balancing volume with quality is DA 50-80. Use Moz’s free checker or Ahrefs to verify before submitting.

2. Dofollow vs. Nofollow Link Type

This is the most misunderstood metric in profile link building. Many of the world’s biggest platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok — use nofollow links by default. Nofollow links don’t pass PageRank directly but still contribute to brand visibility, referral traffic, and a natural link profile. Always verify before assuming a link is dofollow.

3. Approval Speed

Instant-approval platforms let you build links immediately. Manual-review platforms like Google Business Profile or Yelp take longer but often carry stronger trust signals. Plan your campaign to include both types.

4. Link Stability and Longevity

Some platforms delete inactive profiles after 6-12 months. Note which sites require periodic activity to keep your profile alive. A 6-month review cycle keeps your link profile healthy.

5. Referral Traffic Potential

The best profile sites send actual visitors. A profile on Quora, ProductHunt, or Houzz in your niche delivers targeted referral traffic on top of the SEO benefit — making it doubly valuable.

Tier 1: High Authority Profile Sites (DA 80+)

Start your campaign here. These 61 platforms offer the strongest link equity and brand exposure. A complete, authentic profile on even 20-30 of these sites can meaningfully move the needle.

#	Site Name	DA	Approval	Link Type	Traffic
1	LinkedIn	96	Instant	Dofollow	High
2	YouTube	96	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
3	Reddit	95	Instant	Nofollow	High
4	Twitter/X	95	Instant	Nofollow	Medium
5	Facebook	93	Instant	Nofollow	High
6	Canva (public profile)	93	Instant	Nofollow	High
7	Pinterest	92	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
8	Quora	92	Instant	Mixed (bio=DF)	High
9	Google Business Profile	92	Manual	Dofollow	Very High
10	GitHub	91	Instant	Dofollow	High
11	Trello (public boards)	91	Instant	Nofollow	Medium
12	Disqus	91	Instant	Nofollow	Medium
13	GitLab	90	Instant	Dofollow	High
14	Instagram	90	Instant	Nofollow	High
15	Twitch	90	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
16	eBay (seller profile)	90	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
17	Pocket (public profile)	90	Instant	Nofollow	Medium
18	Yelp	89	Manual	Dofollow	Very High
19	Etsy (seller profile)	88	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
20	WordPress.com	88	Instant	Dofollow	High
21	Bitbucket	88	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
22	Indeed	88	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
23	ResearchGate	87	Manual	Dofollow	Medium
24	TripAdvisor	87	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
25	Coursera	87	Manual	Dofollow	High
26	Tumblr	87	Instant	Dofollow	High
27	Notion (public pages)	87	Instant	Nofollow	High
28	Shopify (store profile)	87	Instant	Nofollow	High
29	Blogger	86	Instant	Dofollow	High
30	Drupal	86	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
31	WooCommerce	85	Instant	Dofollow	High
32	Udemy	85	Instant	Dofollow	High
33	Squarespace	85	Instant	Dofollow	High
34	DeviantArt	85	Instant	Dofollow	High
35	SourceForge	85	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
36	Flickr	84	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
37	Medium	84	Instant	Nofollow (posts)	High
38	Joomla	84	Instant	Dofollow	High
39	SoundCloud	84	Instant	Dofollow	High
40	SlideShare	83	Instant	Dofollow	High
41	Vimeo	83	Instant	Dofollow	High
42	Weebly	83	Instant	Dofollow	High
43	Stack Overflow	83	Manual	Dofollow (profile)	High
44	CodePen	83	Instant	Dofollow	High
45	Flipboard	83	Instant	Nofollow	High
46	BBB (Better Business Bureau)	83	Manual	Dofollow	High
47	Houzz	82	Instant	Dofollow	High
48	Behance	82	Instant	Dofollow	High
49	Kickstarter	82	Manual	Dofollow	High
50	Gravatar	82	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
51	Glassdoor	81	Instant	Nofollow	Very High
52	ProductHunt	81	Instant	Dofollow	High
53	Academia.edu	81	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
54	Skillshare	81	Instant	Dofollow	High
55	HomeAdvisor / Angi	80	Manual	Dofollow	High
56	Scribd	80	Instant	Dofollow	High
57	Goodreads	80	Instant	Dofollow	High
58	Wix	80	Instant	Dofollow	High
59	Slack (public profiles)	80	Instant	Nofollow	Low
60	Dailymotion	81	Instant	Dofollow	High
61	YellowPages.com	78	Manual	Dofollow	High

Pro Tip: Create profiles on LinkedIn, GitHub, Google Business Profile, ProductHunt, and WordPress.com in your first session. These five alone cover DA 80-96 and take under 2 hours to set up properly.

Tier 2: Medium-High Authority Sites (DA 65-79)

These platforms add valuable diversity to your backlink profile. Many are niche-specific, making them excellent for relevance signals in your industry. Add these after completing your Tier 1 foundation.

#	Site Name	DA	Approval	Link Type	Traffic
62	Crunchbase	79	Manual	Dofollow	High
63	Shutterstock	79	Instant	Dofollow	High
64	Indiegogo	79	Manual	Dofollow	High
65	Xing	79	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
66	Foursquare	78	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
67	Genius	78	Instant	Dofollow	High
68	freeCodeCamp	78	Instant	Dofollow	High
69	Mendeley	77	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
70	Bandcamp	77	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
71	G2	76	Manual	Dofollow	High
72	AngelList (Wellfound)	76	Instant	Dofollow	High
73	Livejournal	76	Instant	Dofollow	Low
74	Kaggle	76	Instant	Dofollow	High
75	Dun & Bradstreet	76	Manual	Dofollow	Medium
76	LeetCode	75	Instant	Dofollow	High
77	Trustpilot	75	Manual	Dofollow	High
78	Patreon	75	Instant	Nofollow	Medium
79	Issuu	75	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
80	Webflow	74	Instant	Dofollow	High
81	Dribbble	74	Instant	Dofollow	High
82	Capterra	74	Manual	Dofollow	High
83	Upwork	74	Instant	Dofollow	High
84	Thumbtack	74	Manual	Dofollow	High
85	Hugging Face	74	Instant	Dofollow	High
86	Telegram (public channels)	74	Instant	Nofollow	Low
87	HackerRank	73	Instant	Dofollow	High
88	500px	73	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
89	Zhihu	73	Instant	Dofollow	High
90	Substack	73	Instant	Dofollow	High
91	Fiverr	72	Instant	Nofollow	High
92	Clutch	72	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
93	TheMovieDB	72	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
94	Threads	72	Instant	Nofollow	High
95	JSFiddle	72	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
96	Loom (public profile)	72	Instant	Nofollow	Medium
97	Bigcartel	72	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
98	ArtStation	71	Instant	Dofollow	High
99	Dev.to	71	Instant	Dofollow	High
100	Nextdoor	71	Manual	Dofollow	High
101	Gumroad	70	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
102	Ghost	70	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
103	Kompass	70	Manual	Dofollow	Medium
104	99designs	70	Instant	Dofollow	High
105	Replit	70	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
106	Hashnode	69	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
107	About.me	68	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
108	Toptal	68	Manual	Dofollow	High
109	Good Firms	68	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
110	AllBusiness	68	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
111	Freelancer.com	67	Instant	Dofollow	High
112	Manta	67	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
113	Diigo	67	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
114	Seedrs	66	Manual	Dofollow	Low
115	Chamber of Commerce	65	Manual	Dofollow	Medium
116	Tilda	65	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
117	Bluesky	65	Instant	Nofollow	Low
118	Teachable	64	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
119	Codecademy	79	Manual	Dofollow	Medium

Tier 3: Mid Authority Sites (DA 48-64)

Use these platforms for diversification. While individual link value is lower, collectively they fill out a natural backlink profile and cover niche-specific relevance. Add these in months 2-3 of your campaign.

#	Site Name	DA	Approval	Link Type	Traffic
120	BookBaby	63	Instant	Dofollow	Low
121	Strikingly	62	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
122	Superpages	62	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
123	Ko-fi	62	Instant	Nofollow	Low
124	Gust	61	Manual	Dofollow	Low
125	Buy Me A Coffee	61	Instant	Nofollow	Low
126	Mix.com	61	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
127	Alignable	60	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
128	Typepad	60	Instant	Dofollow	Low
129	Mastodon	60	Instant	Dofollow	Low
130	Reedsy	60	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
131	Beehiiv	60	Instant	Dofollow	Low
132	Kajabi	58	Instant	Dofollow	Low
133	Hotfrog	58	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
134	Bark.com	58	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
135	Pearltrees	58	Instant	Dofollow	Low
136	Wakelet	55	Instant	Dofollow	Low
137	PeoplePerHour	55	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
138	SendOwl	55	Instant	Dofollow	Low
139	Cylex	55	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
140	Bark (UK)	55	Instant	Dofollow	Low
141	Mighty Networks	54	Instant	Dofollow	Low
142	Folkd	52	Instant	Dofollow	Low
143	Guru	52	Instant	Dofollow	Low
144	AngelInvestor	52	Manual	Dofollow	Low
145	EZlocal	52	Instant	Dofollow	Low
146	Podia	52	Instant	Dofollow	Low
147	Spoke	52	Instant	Dofollow	Low
148	Tupalo	50	Instant	Dofollow	Low
149	Brownbook	50	Instant	Dofollow	Low
150	Papaly	50	Instant	Dofollow	Low
151	n49	50	Instant	Dofollow	Low
152	Circle	48	Instant	Dofollow	Low
153	Livejournal	76	Instant	Dofollow	Low
154	Alignable	60	Instant	Dofollow	Medium
155	Spoke	52	Instant	Dofollow	Low

Quick Category Reference — Find Sites by Niche

Use this table to quickly identify profile sites relevant to your niche or goal:

Category	Best Sites	Count
Professional / Business	LinkedIn, Xing, Crunchbase, AngelList, Alignable	5
Social Media	Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Threads, Tumblr, Bluesky, Mastodon	8
Video & Streaming	YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Twitch	4
Developer / Tech	GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Stack Overflow, CodePen, HackerRank, LeetCode, Kaggle, Replit, Hugging Face, freeCodeCamp, Codecademy	12
Design & Creative	Behance, Dribbble, DeviantArt, ArtStation, Flickr, 500px	6
Q&A & Community	Quora, Reddit, Dev.to, Hashnode	4
Freelance Marketplaces	Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Toptal, Guru, PeoplePerHour, 99designs	7
Publishing & Blogging	Medium, Substack, WordPress.com, Blogger, Ghost, Beehiiv, Issuu, Scribd, SlideShare	9
Education	Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare, ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Mendeley, Teachable	7
Music & Podcasts	SoundCloud, Bandcamp, Spotify/Anchor	3
E-commerce & Creator	Gumroad, Ko-fi, Buy Me A Coffee, Patreon, Etsy, Bigcartel	6
Local & Business Directories	Google Business, Yelp, BBB, YellowPages, Houzz, Angi, Thumbtack, Manta, Hotfrog	10
Reviews & Ratings	Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, Glassdoor, Clutch, Good Firms	6
Bookmarking & Curation	Diigo, Flipboard, Mix, Pocket, Wakelet, Pearltrees	6
Web Builders	Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Tilda, Strikingly, Ghost, Typepad	7
Other / Misc	Gravatar, About.me, Disqus, Foursquare, Nextdoor, Dun & Bradstreet, Kompass	7

How to Build a Profile Backlink Strategy (Step-by-Step)

Step 1: Build Your Tier 1 Foundation First

In week one, create fully complete profiles on 10-15 DA 80+ sites. LinkedIn, GitHub, WordPress.com, ProductHunt, and Google Business Profile are non-negotiable starting points. Fill every available field — professional photo, 150-200 word bio, website URL, and social links. Incomplete profiles get deleted faster and drive no traffic.

Step 2: Diversify Across Categories — Match Your Niche

After your Tier 1 base is built, diversify by category. Don’t create 30 developer profiles if your site isn’t tech-related. Match platforms to your niche for the best relevance signals. A good distribution: 5-10 professional network profiles, 4-6 social media profiles, 3-5 Q&A community profiles, and 3-8 niche-specific directories.

Step 3: Vary Anchor Text Across Every Profile

Never use the same anchor text on every profile. Rotate between your brand name, exact URL, a keyword variation, and generic phrases like ‘visit my website.’ A natural mix avoids over-optimization penalties.

Step 4: Pace Your Campaign — 3 to 5 Per Day

Create 3-5 new profiles per day maximum. Spread the campaign over 4-6 weeks. Even legitimate links acquired too quickly can trigger algorithmic scrutiny. Slow and steady wins here — Google rewards consistent, natural link velocity.

Step 5: Audit and Maintain Every 6 Months

Set a calendar reminder every 6 months to revisit your profiles. Confirm links are live, profiles haven’t been deleted for inactivity, and information is current. Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Search Console help you monitor when links get indexed or drop.

Best Practices for Profile Creation

• Be Authentic: Engage on platforms where you can. Answer questions on Quora, share projects on Behance, or post code on GitHub. Activity signals legitimacy and keeps profiles alive longer.
• Use Real Photos: A professional profile photo significantly increases trust and click-through rates. Profiles without photos are more likely to be flagged as spam.
• Write Compelling Bios: Tell people who you are, what you offer, and why they should visit your site. Aim for 100-200 words. Include a natural keyword mention where relevant.
• Track with UTM Parameters: Add UTM codes to your profile links so Google Analytics shows you exactly which platforms send traffic.
• Update Profiles Quarterly: Refresh profiles every 3 months. Add new projects or accomplishments. Active profiles stay indexed longer and perform better.
• Monitor Link Health: Use a backlink tool to check that links stay live. Platforms occasionally purge inactive profiles — a 6-month audit catches these early.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Assuming All Links Are Dofollow: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok are all nofollow by default. Always verify before building your strategy around a platform.
• Creating Spammy Empty Profiles: No photo, no bio, just a URL screams spam. Quality profiles with real information survive longer and perform better.
• Using Automation Tools: Bots get shadowbanned or permanently blocked on most platforms. Create profiles manually. It takes more effort but results last.
• Over-Concentrating on One Category: 50 developer profiles won’t help an e-commerce store. Spread profiles across diverse categories for a natural link profile.
• Ignoring Nofollow Sites: High-traffic nofollow platforms drive significant referral traffic and build brand awareness. Don’t skip them just because they don’t pass PageRank.
• Not Varying Anchor Text: Using the same keyword anchor on every profile is a classic over-optimization signal. Diversify across brand name, URL, keyword, and generic variations.

Realistic Timeline and SEO Expectations

Phase	Activity	What to Expect
Weeks 1-4	Create 30-50 Tier 1 profiles	Links indexed in 48-72 hrs; early authority signals build
Weeks 5-8	Add 40-60 Tier 2 profiles	Backlink profile diversifies; mid-competition keywords may shift
Months 3-6	Add Tier 3; engage on active platforms	Cumulative link equity builds; measurable keyword improvements possible
Month 6+	Maintain, audit, and selectively expand	Long-term stability; referral traffic compounds with platform engagement

Disclaimer: SEO results vary significantly based on niche competition, existing domain authority, content quality, and your overall strategy. No specific traffic improvement figures can be guaranteed.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Conclusion

Profile creation backlinks remain one of the most accessible and cost-effective off-page SEO tactics available in 2026. With 155+ verified platforms organized by authority, link type, and category — you have everything needed to build a diverse, legitimate backlink profile from scratch.

The golden rules: prioritize quality over quantity, create complete and authentic profiles, always verify dofollow status, and audit every 6 months. Pair this strategy with strong on-page SEO and quality content, and you will build a sustainable link-building foundation that compounds over time.

Start with the top 20 Tier 1 sites this week. Set a paced schedule. And come back to this list regularly — update it to reflect platform changes so you are always working from accurate information.

Found this guide helpful? Share it with your team and drop any sites we missed in the comments below.