So you want to be a Ringmaster........

You've been poking around the web, and you have run across these things called webrings. They seemed kind of cool, and it was a fun way to surf to some content related websites. It was like following a pathway through a dense forest, moving from village to village. Now you want to create one of these rings, but you don't know what to do or where to start??

Before you begin, there are a few
things you may wish to consider.

*Search Search around some of your favorite websites and the directories for webring hosting services to see if there is an active and well managed webring with the same topic or theme as the ring you wish to create. If there is you may wish to join one of them rather then create your own. Creating, managing, and promoting a new webring takes effort and dedication and can be very time consuming.

*Think Think about what you are trying to accomplish. Do you want to increase traffic to your site? Webrings will do this to a certain extent, but they are far down on the list of traffic builders. Do you want to meet other people with same interest as yours? Do you want to create a highly interactive community? These kinds of rings require an immense amount of effort to organize and operate. Or do you simply want to link together sites with similar tastes, topics, or themes? This is the perfect application for webrings.

*Consider Consider the long term commitments of managing a webring. How much time do you have to spend on managing, and promoting your ring, on assisting your members and maintaining your ring's home page? Will you have this same amount of time in 3 months, 6 months, or a year from now? Once you begin a ring your members and your webring hosting service will be counting on you to maintain it's integrity to very high standards.

*Integrity The integrity of the ring is the responsibility of you the ringmaster. While systems can provide tools to help, it is still up to you as the ringmaster to effectively use these tools to manage the integrity of your ring. And no matter how good these tools are, unless you the ringmaster are prepared to effectively use these tools as intended, nothing else is going to protect the integrity of your ring.

*Ask Ask yourself who would want to join your webring. Contact a few friends or fellow members in some of your online groups and see if you can generate any interest in the ring. Get your new webring off to a good start by having a few members lined up and ready to join before you create your ring.

Related Topics

Getting Started: 
Choosing a Hosting Service  >   Creating Your Homepage  >   Creating a Ring Logo  >   Creating Your Navigation Code.