back before follower/following lists with strange politics was the magic act of discovering pages by just vouching for other people and following trails of links. there was a sense of magic to this act; i used to make pokemon fansites that would have a version of this called 'affiliates' and 'sister sites' - we'd make up requirements like 'have at least 5 pages of substantial content!!' to deem a site as worthy of being our affiliate, then stick a button (commonly 88x31) linking to them.
this was one of my first buttons! i animated it myself in paint, using a "gif maker" site to put the images together lmao
and a hand-drawn type over bokeh with soft light soft rounded brush colors at the background for my site a few years later
this website is part of several webrings
webrings are like circular structures of 'affiliate links'; sites will have a webring section where you can see "next" "previous" and sometimes "random" buttons that take you around the circularly-linked ring of sites for you to continue hopping and discovering each site. clicking on the main webring might bring you to the webring's site, where you can see a full index of all sites part of them and perhaps the manifesto/story about the ring. they tend to have common themes that unite the sites under them.
once you join a webring (and whoever maintains it adds your site to the directory), it's generally as easy as copy-and-pasting a few snippets of code.
these handmade, intimate, more homegrown blogs are more niche nowadays — so if you want a network and community (which is one of the strongest reasons to have a public blog), a webring might be a great way to start feeling part of a larger network of likeminded blog owners. here are some webrings that you can explore:
- yesterweb webring: channeling the ethos of the early web. "This webring is for anyone who is tired of how boring and same-y the internet is today. It's for anyone who is sick of seeing websites used purely to drive monetization, informative blogs that ask you to subscribe to see content. If you believe that the internet is being wrongly controlled by capitalism, or that social interaction online should be more than it currently is on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, then you belong here."
- low tech webring: homepages of people interested in low teech, small game tools, and other forms of web 1.0 inspired creativity inspired by olia lialina and the low tech magazine.
- xxiivv webring: for artists & developers who have made handcrafted wikis and portfolios
each webring defines their own process on how to 'join' them, usually dictated by the webring manager(s). sometimes it's about making a direct github pull request (where the code for the webring is hosted) that just involves adding your link in, sometimes there's an application involved.
to find more, try hopping through the sites there and seeing what other webrings they might be a part of... you never know where you'll end up.
outside of webrings...
you can also just link to blogs you'd like without expectation of them linking back to you in return, start commenting on other blogs you find interesting, etc... while this is an age-old practice, don't feel like you need to buy into it if it's not for you. :)
more about webrings:
- https://indieweb.org/webring
- https://thewikion.neocities.org/wiki/webring.html
- https://brisray.com/web/webrings.htm
on making your own webring:
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