Web Rings ?

[Judy]

Can anybody tell me if web rings are good to join or are they mostly used for personal sites? And how effective are they? Thanx in advance for any insight!

[The Dreamer]

Hey Judy-

I've joined a couple of web rings... they come in all shapes and sizes. I found that, at least in the begining, they were a wonderful source of pretty targeted traffic, mostly because of the very nature of web rings.

If your seriously looking into joining one I have a few tips. First, explore the ring that your considering joining. What sort of sites are in it already?? How much traffic seems to go through the ring? Most web ring pages will show a general idea of the traffic to and from each site.

Second thing is look at the size of the ring itself. Does it have a lot of sites or only a handful? I've noticed that meduim sized rings (with 30 - 50 site in them) tend to server better in the begining.

The last thing is look at the terms of the ring. Many have specific terms as far as content and such. Compare the terms to your site and see just how close you come to them.

Obviously some rings are better then others, and investigating them takes a bit of time. I wouldn't just jump at the first likely ring you see though... it's rather like comparison shopping, weigh them against each other and your own personal tastes before signing up for one. I also wouldn't go hog wild at first. One or two at the most is a good starting point. Bear in mind that rings do require that you add their ring code to your pages, and sometimes those graphic's can be somewhat large and space consuming.

All in all my own personal experiances have been really good with web rings, and I still find them a comforting soure of traffic through my site.

I hope this helped in some little way. :)

[Dave Swift]

In my experience, no, they're not.

But it all really depends on what type of web ring it is. What is it about? How many sites are in it? Are they sites with a decent traffic flow?

These are all important questions, but it is also important as to how well you can integrate the web ring into your site.

[Judy]

Thank you so much, Dreamer and Dave for the input. I've been meaning to ask that question for the longest time LOL! Since we are a general entertainment site with several categories, I'm gonna do me a little checking around and, based on y'all's advice on what to look for, I think I will try one or two and see how they do. Thanx again! ( I just love this forum, everybody is always so friendly and helpful!)

[thefluiddruid]

In my experance they can give you a temporary boost in traffic, but it usually falls off.
This is because most of the hits come from the other members of the webring, not their visitors.