Brad Enslen - More Thoughts on Webrings.

This is a continuation of my earlier post on webrings. Start there for context.

I used the analogy of a webring being a road or highway. So I just remembered something I did back in the old days.

I created three rings on different ring hosts: Webring, Ringsurf, Bomis. This was to take advantage of traffic coming from the ring host website which were very busy and like a directory of webrings.
The rings had different graphics, but all three had identical membership requirements. (All were science fiction/fantasy rings.) But they had different members with some crossovers.
I created a Junction Page and put all three ring codes on it. I explained to the visitor that this was an opportunity for them to switch to surfing another ring if they wanted or continue on with the ring they came in on. I was the Ringmaster of all three so I could do that.
I was running a science fiction/fantasy directory. Webmasters that submitted their sites for directory inclusion got an acceptance email. At the end of that email was a link to a page about other traffic things we offer webmasters like - those webrings. All free. And of course when you joined a ring, that acceptance email mentioned the directory…
All three rings grew.

What that created was a crisscross of traffic, each element reinforcing each other and drawing surfers from different sources. And it all sort of worked. They all supplied a steady stream of traffic even after the Google came on the scene. And for webmasters in the genre, it was a one stop shop of many free things and each one would help them get discovered.

Anyway, thanks for listening.