A web ring is a group of related web sites that ban together to swap exposure. They are much like banner exchanges but a little more refined. Instead of random banner inserts, you provide a standard set of HTML coding for the web ring on your page with usually load a small graphics, a link to the list of sites on the web ring as well as a link to the "next' related site.

Go to this page:

PI MACUSER RESOURCE CENTER
http://www.pimall.com/nais/mac.html

Scroll down until you see iMac Web Ring. This gives you an example of a good web ring for iMac Users and gives you an idea of how targeted they get. To get a list of web rings, go to the Yahoo search site and simply type in web rings. You'll find thousands of them.

Web rings has become a kind of alternative to search engines and directories that avoid the massive amount of irrelevant hits one usually gets. It's kind of a barter trade in which you get linked into the web ring with others who have web sites on the same subject. The advantage of a Web ring for the viewer is that he or she can start surfing the Web ring from any Web Ring member page. By looking at the Web ring block on each member's page, the viewer can toggle through each member page or get a link list of everyone in the ring. In order to join Web Rings, you have to find Web Rings that are appropriate to the subject of your web site. There are a few major Web Ring Directories which you can use. The major ones are:

LoopLink Directory
http://www.looplink.com

RingSurf
http://www.ringsurf.com