## Zoho Sites

Zoho Sites is a hosted website builder that lets you publish pages on a free subdomain or mapped domain. A direct button, image, or menu link can be dofollow when you leave Zoho's optional nofollow setting disabled.

- URL: https://www.zoho.com/sites/
- Guide: https://backlinkbadger.com/provider/zoho/
- Link type: dofollow
- Free option: yes
- Backlink value: 2/100
- Spam score: 2/100
- Difficulty: 35/100
- Estimated time: 30 minutes
- Requirements: Zoho account, Email, Page copy and images, Destination URL

The useful route is to publish a small, genuinely useful site or landing page and add a direct external link. Do not treat the Zoho domain's reputation as instant authority: a new `zohosites.com` subdomain is still a brand-new page that needs useful content and discovery of its own.

### Method: Add a direct button link

1. [Create a Zoho Sites account](https://www.zoho.com/sites/signup.html) and choose a template that fits the page you intend to publish.
2. Add original copy, images, and enough context for the destination link to help a visitor. A one-line backlink shell is not worth building.
3. In the builder, select **Add → Element**, then drag a **Button** into the relevant section.
4. Select the button, open **Link**, choose **Change Link**, and enter the full external URL.
5. Leave the **nofollow** toggle disabled if you want a direct dofollow link. Zoho also exposes `noopener` and `noreferrer`; those tokens do not turn the anchor into nofollow.
6. Preview the site, click the link to verify its destination, then use **Publish**. On the first publication, Zoho documents options for a free subdomain, a new domain, or a mapped domain.

Zoho's help article shows the button link controls and the optional link-attribute toggles:

[Image: Zoho Sites help showing the Button link workflow and optional nofollow setting]

An external link can also be added as a menu item through **Configuration → Menus → Add Menu Item → External Link**. Use that only when the destination belongs in the site's navigation; a contextual button usually gives readers a clearer reason to click.

### What the published link looks like

The public [UK Game of the Show and EuroPlay site](https://ukgotseuroplay.zohosites.com/) includes partner-image links to external sites. In the fetched page HTML, the Kwalee partner link points directly to `https://www.kwalee.com/` with an empty `rel` attribute—no `nofollow`, `ugc`, `sponsored`, or redirect wrapper. A second partner link to `https://loading.bar/` has the same direct-link pattern.

That evidence supports `dofollow: true` for the specific button/image-link configuration described here, not for every link Zoho Sites can render. Inspect your own published anchor after every template or element change, because the editor lets authors enable nofollow deliberately.

### Cost, indexing, and realistic value

Zoho's current website-builder comparison says a basic ad-free plan is available at no cost, while its pricing page foregrounds a 15-day trial for Starter and Pro. Start with the free path if it appears for your account, but check the live plan limits before investing heavily in a build.

Zoho says it generates XML sitemaps so search engines can discover published pages. That makes a legitimate hosted site crawlable, but it does not make a fresh subdomain authoritative. The backlink becomes more useful when the page serves a real audience, earns internal structure, and attracts links of its own.