You don't see them mentioned much anylonger but it is is often a good idea to link your sites together using a webring, especially if you own sites that compliment each other.

Is there anyone here who is using this technique? If so, how is it affecting your traffic?

i don't currently use it, but i know others that do. i don't know what their results are though?

Most of the webrings I have seen recently are associated with arts and crafts, or alternative spirituality. This is probably because they are niche markets and most of the web owners are not able to pay for advertising. They save money by advertising less and gaining traffic through similar sites.

Webrings are also called link farms. I know of a number of sites which got penalized heavily by Google for being associated with these webrings and they lost a lot of organic traffic in return.

As far as I know, a link farm is simply a set of pages that have links and not content, just like a banner farm is a set of pages populated with nothing but banners leading to other sites. I am not familiar with the term "link farm" being applied to sites associated with a common webring. Sites in a webring normally have pertinent content.

Where did you see thi information on this? I would really like to take a look at it.

Learning something new everyday!

I believe it hurts your SEO, I would stay away from if it, if possible. They bring in little traffic, but jepordize your main marketing methods.

I think webrings are passe. There are easier ways to provide promonant links and and easy navigate than a clunky webring which will often give your page an amateurish look. They used to be big but few users surf rings now that search engines have better algorythms.

I don't know that they're really "passe." If I find a website that I like, I will still search the webring to see what else is out there on the same subject. Even with search engines being better than they've been in the past, sometimes they totally miss things you might be able to find on a webring. :shrug:

First of all this technique is not dead, its still ver much in the forefront of web traffic generation. Nowadays though it is given the name 'Networks' amognst others, where a user has many other sites and links them in.
There are also the odd ring or two that are other peoples' sites but it is more common now that you must pay for hose 'text links'

Alex

Web rings can be hugely beneficial and are done by many websites. In my particular niche "weddings", the visitor can actually have a better experience if the website is involved in a web ring. It gives them the option of seeing other websites in the same niche but different markets. So they may have started looking for wedding gowns but then saw a useful site on wedding favors.

The traffic in this type of scenario is specifc and targeted which would be a plus to the website owner.