How resource page links work
Some pages exist only to point elsewhere. A university department keeps a reading list, an industry association keeps a page of tools its members use, a charity keeps a list of places to get help, a blogger keeps a page of everything worth reading on their subject. A resource page link is an entry on one of those lists.
You find them by searching for the subject alongside the words those pages tend to use — useful links, recommended reading, tools we use, further resources — and by looking at what already links to your competitors. Then you check the page is alive: recently updated, links still working, a named person behind it. The pitch is short. Here is the page, here is what it does that the entries already on your list do not, and here is why your readers would use it.
Why they are worth pursuing
The editorial decision is explicit. Nobody adds an entry to a curated list by accident, so the link is a deliberate recommendation from someone who has read the page. That is exactly the kind of citation search engines were designed to count, and it is also a link a real person might click, because visitors to a resource page arrive intending to click something.
They also tend to be topically tight. A page listing resources for trekking operators or for remittance customers is unambiguous about its subject, which makes the relevance of the link obvious rather than something you have to argue for.
Where it goes wrong
Submitting a sales page is the most common mistake. Curators list things their readers can use — a guide, a calculator, a template, a free tool — not a page asking for enquiries. If you have nothing of that kind, the honest answer is to build one before pitching.
The second problem is that many so-called resource pages are link farms in polite clothing: unrelated entries, no editorial voice, an inclusion fee, or a page nobody has touched for years. Paying to be listed turns a link into a paid placement, with the risk on your side. Abandoned pages pass on almost nothing and are read by nobody.
The third is treating the tactic as a volume exercise. Curated lists are rare, and the supply in any one subject runs out quickly.
How to act on it
Start from your best genuinely useful page, not from a link target you want to promote. Export the backlinks of two or three competitors, filter for pages whose titles suggest a list, and check each one by hand. Where a list already contains a dead entry you can replace, say so — that combination of broken link building and a curated list is the strongest version of the pitch.
Keep the expectation modest. A small number of well-chosen listings, added over time, is a normal part of link building; a sudden pile of directory entries is not.