The link you can't buy
runs.space was going to sell a followed link for $49. I took it out. Here is why a link has to be earned, and how two sites now work together to make it so.
Until this week, the pricing page of runs.space said you could buy a permanent page for your product with a followed link, for $49. I took that sentence out. Nobody had bought one, so it cost me nothing to be wrong about it, and that is exactly why I wanted to fix it now.
What a followed link is
When one site links to another, the link can carry a little of the first site's trust to the second. That is what people mean by a backlink, and it is why directories exist. A link marked nofollow or sponsored says: do not count this one.
Why I can't sell one
Search engines say it plainly in their own guidance: a link that was paid for should be labelled as such. A directory that sells followed links is selling a ranking signal, and the answer to that is to stop trusting the signal, and the directory with it.
It also broke my own rule. On runs.space, money can buy visibility and never fuel, because a vote you can buy is not a vote. A ranking signal you can buy is the same mistake with a bigger prize.
A followed link out of runs.space is earned: your rocket carries our badge on your own site and we have verified it, or it reached Orbit. A Hangar page is still a permanent page at your own subdomain, with room for the whole story. Until the badge is verified, its link says sponsored.
Two sites, one idea
runs.space is the week: a race, a winner, a new standing every Monday. Its sister site, runs-this.today, is the record that stays: a directory of what people are running right now, listed by hand. I call them the Arena and the Atlas.
They share one database and one sign-in, and they now know each other. A product's page in the Atlas shows where it stands in the race. A rocket's page here shows when it is also listed there. And the same rule runs through both: in the Atlas, a link to a product's own site is followed once the listing is claimed and reviewed, or when its badge is verified. Nothing on either site sells it.
What I expect, and what the numbers say so far
I offered about fifty listings to named makers across the two sites: real products, listed from public information, waiting for their owners to claim them. Nobody has claimed one. The people who did show up were not the ones I had invited: six makers launched a rocket each in a single night.
My reading is that makers come for the listing, and a link they have to earn is a reason to do the small things that matter anyway: put the badge on your own site, claim what is yours, and take a turn in the race. If it turns out nobody cares about a followed link, I will have given up a product that nobody had bought.
What is next
- Adding your rocket to the Atlas in one click from Mission Control, so one launch gets you both pages.
- A regular check that listed products are still running, shown on each page.
- A launch kit that sells the work of getting listed properly, with a report of what went live, instead of selling the link.
If you are building something, launch it. It is free, it takes a minute, and it lasts longer than a day. If you are already in the Atlas and it is yours, claim it.
Launch a rocket for free, or fuel someone else's. Every point is a real person's vote.