Some Comments About Webrings

Webrings are intended to link together sites which share a common theme. They were created as an alternative to directories and search engines, which are frequently run by faceless corporations or uncaring individuals who don't really give a hoot about anything but how to get more revenue and improve the quality of their "image".

You see, the webmaster who is interested in "making a living" from his website or getting a ton of money is actually in the minority. In fact, the entire phenomenon of cashing in on this vast communication medium is very new. The internet and web was originally intended to be a shared pool of information, freely available to all. It was an ideal of many of the founders to be able to share information, experiences and have endless conversations freely and without bounds.

Perhaps this ideal is one of the factors which led to the huge internet explosion a few years ago: it was ripe virgin territory for commerce and abuse. Unfortunately, the dream of the founders has often been overshadowed by vast corporations and legions of webmasters intent only upon cashing in as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, though, the dream is still alive behind the veneer of corporate greed. There are still many millions of webmasters who have no goal other than communication. The vast majority of people on the web simply want to "talk" to someone, to become educated, to learn something, and perhaps to be entertained.

The search engines and directories were begun by some of these early dreamers, and for years they offered surfers true value in terms of information. Of course, the huge influx of greed (primarily from unethical adult and other webmasters), these portals found themselves involved in a war. I still remember the time when just about any term in any search engine would produce more adult sites than anything else. In fact, the search engines were rendered useless to most surfers and the directories even more so.

In addition, these engines were bought up by huge corporations who saw them simply as a way to create income. They have become, in reality, useless to surfers who desire useful information. Surfers have more and more come to understand that the engines are simply vast money making machines, and this is the primary reason why these have been croaking right and left lately. They are useless to the average user who only wants to find something useful - not something popular or something to purchase.

This is the datum that the major engines are ignorant about (or couldn't care less about, which is worse): surfers don't care about popular sites, they don't are how many webmasters have been conned into linking to a site, they could not care less about what the metatags say; and they certainly don't care or even know about PR (Page Rank) and SEO (Seach Engine Optimization). Surfers want information, and that information is far more likely to be found on a small website (even on a free host) than on some money making machine with a good PR.

Webrings fill in this gap extraordinarily well. You see, webrings are created and maintained by individuals called Ringmasters. These people usually have no monetary interests at all. What they want to do is create pathways through the internet which give surfers an experience.

Ideally, webrings are a way for individual webmasters to create and control their own destiny on the web by forming little golden paths allowing surfers to navigate from site to site. The ringmaster is in control of the ring's style, format and promotion, while member sites are expected to adhere to the ring's criteria. This provides a unique surfing experience for surfers.

A well run webring is a incredibly joy to surf. You can proceed from site to site, enjoying the differences between individuals while admiring the theme which ties them all together. These rings are much like some pixie had walked before you, exploring the internet and carefully marking those sites which might interest you.

Thus, a webring has nothing to do with PR or search engines or any other of that nonsense. What a webring does is enhance communication between sites in a coordinated way which gives value to surfers. This, in turn, makes them want to explore the whole ring, and to come back occasionally to see what changes have occurred.

In the best rings, you can sign up for a newsletter which keeps you informed of new sites and changes to the ring. These rings often have extremely active message boards and use egroups (and other methods) to communicate regularly. These rings are not about crass moneymaking - they are about friendship, caring, discussion, and sharing.

Rings are about targeted traffic. Surfers arriving on a well managed, tightly themed ring are interested in the subject and want to visit a member site.

As rings get larger, the amount of traffic to each individual site increases. This is directly related to the attractiveness of the rig fragment and how well the ring is maintained. Quality rings are indeed extremely good traffic builders; low quality rings are a waste of time and effort.

Webrings were created in 1995, and were almost destroyed by Yahoo in 2000 during their euphoric yet bumbling expansion in those heady times. That traumatic event led to the creation of a new type of ring - that of Ringlink. This is a self-hosted system, extremely powerful, open-source and run by a group of highly dedicated, selfless and ethical people. Ringlink has saved the concept of webrings from destruction and is the single hope of the future of this navigation system.

Other systems include Webring, since divorced from Yahoo; Ringsurf, a decent and full-featured ring host; Siterings by Bravenet, very well managed ring hosting company and some other home-grown alternatives.