Modern Webrings
Webrings came up at the time when businesses wanted to commercialize the internet. Webrings that are operational, such as Webring.org and RingSurf, contain sites that are not online anymore. The emergence of elaborate ways to exchange links on the internet is among the reasons why webrings became defunct.

WEBRING HISTORY
  • According to Tedium, webrings came up at the time when businesses wanted to commercialize the internet. The network of users organized their pages in a circular form.
  • This was to lead users to pages with similar themes and topics. Every page had a link to other pages in the series.
  • Webrings were structured in a way that users would keep clicking on links of related topics/themes with no end in sight.
  • Though the concept was interesting, it was difficult to maintain. In 1995, Sage Weil attempted to solve this by expanding the idea.
  • Webrings were created by people with websites who come together and had each person include a link to the next individual in the loop. When one wanted to join the ring, a member of the ring had to edit their page to include the new page.
  • There were problems with dead links when the ring became bigger and some pages went down.
  • Weil launched Webring.org in 1995 while still in high school. He made maintenance and tracking easier by using a CGI script. The CGI script also solved the problem of dead links.
  • Weil's idea trended in the 90s and Webring.org was prominent. Webring.org was a commercial-free resource and Weil used it to engage with his audience.
  • Webring.org was sold multiple times, first to Starseed. In 1998, it was sold to GeoCities. GeoCities was then sold to Yahoo a year later.
  • Users complained about the changes Yahoo made and in 2001, Yahoo released it.
  •  Webring.org exists up to today. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON WEBRINGS
    Ringsurf logo.
  •  RingSurf is a webring site that is still in existence.
  • Both Webring.org and RingSurf contain sites that are not online anymore.
  • Other webrings that are still operational include Anti-Microsoft webring and the Menudo webring.
  • The IndieWebring that was founded in 2018, according to Vegard, has 88 members. Many of the members are in the tech industry and they share views on privacy, independence, and security on the internet.
  • Online multiplayer gaming was sparked in 1996 when Quake was released. Players organized deathmatches by organizing into clans or teams. The clans were then organized into rings. This was one of the most elaborate uses of webrings.
  • In 1998, Internet Link Exchange was bought for $265 million by Microsoft. Internet Link Exchange was a banner ad network "that functionally worked the same as a webring".
  • According to Tedium, the design of StumbleUpon was the automation of a webring. It works as a webring that was customized for the end-user, though the rings were not user-generated.
  • StumbleUpon was a success and was bought by eBay in 2007 for $75 million. The company's founders bought it back in 2009. This was after StumbleUpon's traffic dropped in the previous year.
  • Webrings inspired "sophisticated ways of sharing links". The roots of webrings can be seen in sites such as Taboola, Outbrain, and social media.

WHY WEBRINGS BECAME DEFUNCT
  • Webrings became defunct due to the emergence of more "elaborate ways of exchanging links on the internet". Social media makes reading easier and Google is much smarter.
  • Webrings were also not built for blogging and are not appropriate for mobile devices.
  • Webrings became obsolete because search engines became good at indexing the web.
  • Webrings were sacrificed to create some current companies. According to Tedium, Bomis, which was a webring, was sacrificed to create Wikipedia. Bomis played a significant role in creating Wikipedia.
  • According to Tedium, Wikipedia’s success was due to the internet’s collective knowledge, the information model that was the foundation of Bomis.

Make a reading network useful without trading irrelevant links

The web-ring services and claims of operation above are historical. A link network is helpful when readers can follow a relevant trail and understand why the next site belongs in it. It does not become useful merely by creating a circle of reciprocal links.

For a hypothetical topic trail, choose a small set of independently useful pages, explain the selection and test the destinations. Keep a way to leave the trail and identify outdated entries. Judge the network by the reading path it supports rather than a promised search-ranking effect. A thoughtful recommendation does not require an automatic exchange.