The badge is the backlink

Every listing on IndieAscent links back to your site. By default that link is nofollow. It flips to dofollow when two things are true: moderators have approved your listing, and your site displays the IndieAscent badge.

Our crawler checks your homepage for the badge when you claim it, then rechecks every week. Take the badge down and the dofollow link pauses until it is back. No tiers, no payments, no tricks. The badge is the whole deal.

When your listing is live you get an embed snippet with your own listing URL in it. Put the badge in your footer or on your homepage; both count.