Some Comments About Webrings

I have been a ringmaster of over a dozen webrings for several
years. I've used all of the ring systems, both as ringmember
and ringmaster. I am extremely active in the ring community.

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 venor
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.