Not as a plain followed link. When we could last read it, on 31 July 2026, the website link on a Product Hunt product page carried rel="noreferrer noopener ugc". Search engines treat ugc as a hint rather than an endorsement, so launch on Product Hunt for the audience, not for the backlink. In October 2026 Product Hunt blocked our direct requests, so check your own product page before relying on this.
The rel attribute on a link tells search engines how much to trust it. A link with no rel value is a normal followed link. ugc marks it as user generated content, and Google has said it treats nofollow, ugc and sponsored as hints, so it may or may not pass any ranking value. In practice you should not count a Product Hunt listing as a strong backlink.
Product Hunt is free to use and has one of the largest launch audiences, so the value is the traffic, feedback and early users on launch day. If backlinks are the goal, many smaller launch sites serve a plain followed link, sometimes with conditions such as ranking in the top 3 or linking back to them.
Yes. Product Hunt says launching is free; you need a personal account to post.
It may. Google treats ugc as a hint, not a rule, so it can choose to count it, but you should not plan around it.
Yes. Sites change their markup without notice, which is why it is worth checking your own listing.