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The Art of Networking: Section Four - Web Rings
by Rebecca Kemp

For those that never heard of a web ring before, here is a quick and dirty explanation:

A web ring is a series of related connected web sites, in which you can surf any number of these sites consecutively, and you will eventually end up where you began. Some html code and some customized graphics are placed on each website and a web surfer can navigate the web ring by following links within the web ring code.

Here is the more in-depth explanation of how a web ring works:

There are three elements that make the web ring system work. The ring owner, the ring members and whoever runs the whole system, in which the biggest owner is Yahoo! (not too long ago, it was Webring.org). The ring owner creates his or her ring based on very personal elements. There are literally hundreds and thousands of web rings that exist. Anyone can create any kind of ring they want. It's a highly personal, very creative, community based system. The ring owner usually creates their own special ring graphics and ring structure to fit their personality and the theme they've chosen for their ring. The ring owner is responsible for accepting and managing ring members.

A ring member is someone who wishes to join the ring owner's web ring. They fill in a sign up form on-line and place the special web ring code on their site. The ring owner then visits the ring member's site. The ring owner then decides whether or not to include the ring member. If the member's site fits the ring owner's web ring criteria, they're usually accepted.

To see a visual example of a web ring, you can visit one that I run myself at http://www.wildlife-fantasy.com/vangogh.html (This ring is for artists.) This ring is not run by the Yahoo! web ring system. I chose to run this ring (and several others) from my own server. (You will read why I chose to do this in the section below called "Yahoo! Nothing to Cheer About.")

Web rings are a fabulous why to drive targeted traffic to your web site. Since every site in the ring has something in common with yours, visitors can browse a myriad of related sites dealing with their topic of interest. It's better than any search engine because they know that site after site will be about what ever the ring is about.

I am part of many, many different web rings. I place my web rings on a special web rings page where I have each section of rings labeled and categorized for easy navigation. See http://www.wildlife-fantasy.com/rings.html. A high percentage of my web site traffic comes from these rings.

Yahoo! Ring System: Nothing to Cheer About

What follows in this portion is a little rant I need to share with everyone about Yahoo!. It pertains mostly to Yahoo!'s recent take over of the Webring.org system, but also airs out other bits of Yahoo!'s dirty laundry. This was originally posted at Quantum Muse at http://www.quantummuse.com/ and is reprinted here with my and their permission. I included it in this section because I feel that you ought to be as informed as you can be about your ring choices.

Ok, would someone please tell Yahoo to get a clue?

They had a clue at one time. Yahoo is a search engine dating back to the early days of what most people remember the Internet to be, and should still be today - a free exchange of ideas and creative expression.

Yahoo is considered one the best Internet search sites on the Net. You can submit your website under a specific category and an actual human being will look at your site and make sure you and your site aren't full of crap. If you aren't full of crap, then they'll list your site - maybe - if they feel like it - in a year or two. This is actually a good way to maintain a search engine with some integrity. If you are searching for "kittens", you are sure to get sites with cats in it and not "Sorority Sex Kittens".

This is all well and good and in fact, their core element of being a relatively decent search engine still remains. However, Lucifer stepped in with a fist full of Benjamins and Yahoo saw great potential in making gobs of cash. Now, I'm all for making a buck or two and we all need to make a living. I understand that. We all understand that.

They started out by using paid banner advertising, which is mildly annoying, but we can all overlook it. Then they started charging $199.00 per site (non-refundable) if you wanted to submit your site to their search engine and actually be considered within a few days. Not accepted mind you, just considered. However, you can still opt to submit your site for free, wait for weeks, more likely months, and maybe, just maybe, you'll be accepted. Ok, so now it's getting really annoying, but it's still not in violation of anyone's creative rights.

Since its beginnings, Yahoo has expanded it's core purpose of being search engine. They now provide free e-mail, chats, clubs, and auctions. This is ok with me since they implemented their own version of these services from scratch. If you signed up for any of these services, you're getting exactly what you asked for.

Now comes their mortal sin and crime against creativity everywhere. Yahoo has recently bought from Webring.org their entire web ring system. Lock, stock and barrel.

What Yahoo has done is eliminate nearly 90% of any and all creativity from the web ring system in favor of uniformity. They literally have assimilated all rings into one formal design. Why they have done this remains to be seen. I personally don't care what the reason is. I'm appalled that they dare take something as personal as the ring owner's ring, that he or she has literally put hours and sometimes years into developing, and change it into a uniform grey box. (See example below.) I can tell you as a ring owner of four different rings, this is not what I asked for when I signed up.

Here is an example of Yahoo! Web Ring:
crappy Yahoo nav bar
NOTE: This is only an image. This is not a live ring.

All rings will now look like this grey box if you remain in the Yahoo system. What a piece of crap! So now, the ring of Power Tools looks almost exactly like the ring of Breast Cancer Survivors. It's an absolute travesty.

To top it all off, they released the new system with enough bugs to make Bill Gate's software designers envious. Ring owners were cut off from their members. New members couldn't apply. The instructions are difficult to follow. Old members now need to sign up for a "Yahoo ID" (Greetings 7 of 9!) and must replace their old ring designs with the Borgish grey rectangles. If you're like me and you're a member of many, many rings (over 50, as a matter of fact.), you're also forced to place all your rings on one page. You can't divide and categorize your rings on separate pages anymore.

When did Yahoo forget that the Internet is all about free expression?

Do not despair. Resistance is not futile.

As usual, when something occurs on-line that upsets the masses, something else appears to appease us. Ring owners can leave the Yahoo system and run their own web ring just like the old Webring.org way at Ring Surf. http://www.ringsurf.com/.

If members are going to have to change their ring codes anyway, they might as well keep the way the old ring looks.

SUPER SECRET TIP! If you're a ring owner and afraid that one day even Ring Surf will get swallowed up, you can opt to run your own web ring from your own server! I use Gunnar's Ring Link at http://www.gunnar.cc/ringlink/. Want more options? Check out http://ringmgr.curio.org/.

Go To: Section Five - Newsgroups

 
This article was reprinted with permission from Rebecca Kemp.

Please visit her sites at:


 
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