Joining a ring consists of filling out a form that submits your site information (title, URL, and description) to the ring's ring manager for approval. You are required to have a User ID so that you can manage your site over time as your site changes or if the ring manager requests changes.

You must have a website join a WebRing. WebRings link together websites, attracting qualified visitors to your site. However, you don't need a website to participate in a WebRing Forum (unless the moderator has specific requirements) and need not join a WebRing in order to visit member sites, simply view the list and select a site or use the "next" and "previous" commands to maneuver around the WebRing.

Submitting your site to a ring does not ensure that your site will be approved and made active in the ring. The ring manager will take some time to review the content of your site to determine if it meets his/her criteria for being in the ring. This is subjective and is the discretion of the ring manager. WebRing Support tries not to interfere with this important process. If you have questions about your site's activation, please contact the ring manager.

In order for you site to be, and remain, active in the ring two things are necessary:

• The ring manager must approve your site. Sometimes this will also make your site active temporarily. But the second criteria must be met soon in order to stay active.
• You must have working navigation code on your registered URL (in some cases you may have the code on another page if you install a link labelled with the word "WebRing", or any variation like "webring", "webrings", "web ring", etc., so that a user can see at a glance where to find the navigation code when they arrive at your site.

The Importance of Navigation Code

It is very important that you place this code where people navigating the ring can see it easily, so the ring can operate properly. In fact, you may want to place it on each page of your site if you have more than one. The size of the navbar is relatively small (usually 250 pixels by 80) and loads quickly, so you should place it in a prominent location on your page(s). The traffic you and other sites return to WebRing is traffic that is more likely to return to your web site. In addition, WebRing awards activity point credit for each unique visitor your site sends to WebRing on a daily basis.

Once you have completed the application to join a ring you can go to your URLs page to get this navigation code. It is commonly called "SSNB code", or Server Side NavBar code. You can place it on your page whether your site has been approved for a ring or not. The WebRing system knows whether it is OK to display a navbar for a ring or not. Also, WebRing will show, unless you turn the feature off, the one navbar for the ring a person is navigating, even if your web site belongs to many rings! This way the correct navbar shows and never takes more space than necessary on your page!

Is it OK to use a "links" page to show my navbar(s)? Maybe, but we discourage it and some managers won't allow it. For most sites it is best to have a single, prominent, navbar available on the page YOU want them to visit. A links page generally means a person navigating the ring will either arrive at the links page and have to click a link to get to your other pages. That's more work than many surfers would prefer to go through. If your navigation code is placed where your content is then they can arrive, view your page(s) at their leisure, and then easily continue to the next site in the ring. Similarly, they will be arriving from the previous site (and others) if other members of the ring do the same.

Site Status

• Pending - Until approved by the ring manager your site is pending and will not appear on the ring's hub page. You can manage your site, and can even obtain, install, and TEST your navigation code. The SSNB, if you use it, will not work, but you can test to see that it PASSes. Do all of this from site Management.
• Active - If your site is approved and the ring manager finds your navigation code to be working properly then your site will be made active and will appear on the ring's Hub page. The SSNB code will also work (will show the ring's navigation bar).
• Suspended - If your site is approved by the ring manager but they do not feel your navigation code is working properly (this can be subjective, you must work this out with your ring manager), then your site may be suspended until the code is working to their satisfaction. Most often this means it PASSes the site checker, which you can check for yourself. If you are suspended, you should check through site Maintenance that your code is working properly and fix it if it is not. Once you have resolved any problems you can contact the ring manager for activation. Note that this can only be done by the ring manager.

Some Useful Links