Launching on Hauntboard is free. A person reviews your launch, it spends a week on the board, it gets a permanent page that Google and AI search can find, and that page links to your site with a dofollow link. In return, free launches show a small Hauntboard badge on their homepage. This post explains why, and exactly how the rule works, so there are no surprises.
Why a Badge
Running a launch board costs money: hosting, reviewing every submission by hand, building the tools makers use. There are a few ways to pay for that. Many platforms charge every maker, sell placement or sell backlinks. We wanted the main way in to stay free, and we never want to sell links.
The badge is the trade. It links back to your page on Hauntboard, which helps people discover the board, which brings more visitors to every launch on it, yours included. A board with more readers sends more visits to every maker. The badge is how free launches pay it forward without paying money.
If you'd rather not show a badge, Launch Now ($19) skips it, and lets you pick your launch week too. Paying changes timing and placement. It never changes the link.
Choosing a Badge
After you submit, your dashboard shows the badge code, ready to copy as HTML or Markdown. There are a few styles, in light and dark:
- Found on Hauntboard, available to every launch, and it updates itself as your launch goes live.
- Live visit count, showing how many visits Hauntboard has sent you, updated automatically.
- Launch of the Week, for launches that finish in the week's top three.
- Editor's Pick, for the launch our editor picks each week.
Badges only ever show fixed words, numbers and dates, never text anyone typed, and they're served as images, so they can't run code on your site. Put one anywhere on your homepage, usually the footer.
How the Check Works
Before a free launch is approved, we check your homepage for the badge. If our checker can't see it (some sites build their footer with JavaScript, which crawlers don't always run), a reviewer looks for it by hand and can approve it that way. If the badge isn't up yet, we may still approve your launch. Its link then starts as nofollow, you'll see a note in your activity, and it switches to dofollow as soon as we find the badge.
After approval, we check again every 30 days. You can also run the check yourself at any time from your dashboard, with the "Check my site" button.
What Happens If the Badge Comes Down
Sites get redesigned, footers get rebuilt, things break. So nothing happens straight away:
- The first time we can't find it, your launch gets a three-day grace period, and we check every day. You'll see a warning in the activity bell and on your dashboard, with the date to put it back by.
- If it's still missing after three days, the link from your launch page switches from dofollow to nofollow. Your launch stays listed, your page stays up, your visits keep counting. Only the link's search credit is paused.
- When the badge is back, the next check switches the link back to dofollow. We keep checking weekly, so this happens on its own, or straight away if you press "Check my site".
We never remove a launch for a missing badge. The rule is narrow on purpose: the badge pays for the dofollow link, so that's the only thing that depends on it.
What a Dofollow Link Is Worth
A dofollow link tells search engines that we vouch for the page we link to, which can help it rank. A nofollow link asks them not to pass that credit. For a new site, a few honest dofollow links from relevant, reviewed pages are part of getting found at all. Our guide on dofollow vs nofollow backlinks explains it in more depth, including why links aren't a magic switch.
Two details worth knowing. The link becomes dofollow when your launch goes live; while it's waiting for review or for its week, it's nofollow. And paid placements are different: sponsor cards on Hauntboard are marked as sponsored links, as search engines require for anything paid. Launch links aren't paid links, on any tier, which is why they can be dofollow.
The Short Version
- Free launches show a badge on their homepage. Paid launches don't have to.
- We check before approval, then every 30 days.
- If it goes missing, you get three days and a warning.
- After that, the link turns nofollow until the badge is back. Nothing else changes.
Ready to launch? Submit for free; free launches go live on the next open Monday.