Is a BBB Listing a Good Backlink?
Not as a followed link. On 88 BBB business profiles with a website link, every one was coded nofollow, accredited or not. The accreditation seal links from your site to BBB, not back to you.
Still useful for: a citation on a DR 93 domain, and customers who check BBB before they call.
For followed local links: your local chamber's directory did better. See below.
97 BBB business profiles from Common Crawl's September 2026 archive: 88 showed a website link, and all 88 carried rel="nofollow noreferrer". 89 of the 97 were accredited.
BBB blocks scripted requests, so we read the archived copies. Method at the end.
What the BBB profile link is
Every BBB business profile we read linked to the business's website with the same code:
<a href="https://yourbusiness.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer" target="_blank">
The nofollow value asks Google not to treat the link as an endorsement. Google's guide to qualifying outbound links describes nofollow as the value to use when "you'd rather Google not associate your site with, or crawl the linked page from, your site". noreferrer stops the browser passing BBB along as the referrer, so your analytics may not credit BBB for the visit.
The profile page itself is open to search engines: BBB's robots.txt (September 2026 copy) contains Allow: /us/*/*/profile/*/*?, and none of the profiles carried a robots meta tag. So the page can be indexed; the link on it just isn't an endorsement.
Accredited or not, the same link
| Profile | Profiles read | With a website link | Coded |
|---|---|---|---|
| BBB Accredited | 89 | 85 | nofollow noreferrer |
| Not accredited | 8 | 3 | nofollow noreferrer |
Paying for accreditation didn't change the link in any profile we read. Our sample leans heavily to accredited businesses, because those were the profiles the archive held, so the non-accredited row is small.
The seal links the other way
BBB's own hyperlinking policy says: "The BBB Accredited Business Seal is designed to provide BBB Accredited Businesses with links from their web pages, and those where they advertise, to their BBB Business Profile."
So the seal puts a link on your site pointing at bbb.org. It gives BBB a backlink from you; it doesn't give you one from BBB.
Is BBB worth it for SEO?
Not for link value, on what we read. What a BBB profile does give you:
- A citation: your business name, address and phone number on a DR 93 domain. See do citations count as backlinks?
- Visitors: nofollow links still send people who click them.
- An indexable page: the profile is open to search engines.
So weigh accreditation on what it does with customers. The link is the same either way.
Where followed local links are
- Your local chamber's directory: on 21 chamber directories we read, member website links were plain followed links. See do chamber of commerce memberships give you a backlink?
- Local news and blogs that write about your business (PR link building).
- Other directories mostly don't: 4 of 25 listings in our Yellow Pages and Yelp check gave a plain followed link.
Followed links from sites that cover your trade
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- Why an archive: bbb.org refused our scripted requests (403), including for robots.txt. Common Crawl stores the raw HTML of pages it crawls, so we read BBB's pages from its September 2026 crawl (captured 4 to 17 September 2026).
- Profiles: business profiles under 8 city paths (Austin, Denver, Phoenix, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Tampa, Columbus) that the crawl held, 97 readable in all. We recorded the website link and its rel value, the robots meta tag, and whether the profile said "BBB Accredited Since".
- Policy pages: BBB's robots.txt and hyperlinking page from the same crawl.
- Limits: archived copies are a few weeks old, and the sample is mostly accredited businesses. If BBB changes its link code, this changes with it; check a profile with our nofollow link checker.
Frequently asked questions
Is a BBB link dofollow?
No. All 88 website links on the BBB profiles we read carried rel="nofollow noreferrer".
Does BBB accreditation help SEO?
Not through the link: accredited profiles had the same nofollow link as the rest. The listing still works as a citation on an indexable page.
Does the BBB seal give me a backlink?
No, the opposite. BBB's hyperlinking policy says the seal provides links from your web pages to your BBB Business Profile.