Will joining a webring harm my rank?

[datapencil]

I am interested in submitting my site [url removed] into a ringsurf webring about peak oil. Does anyone know if google would see that as spamming? Would my site benefit other than the direct webring traffic?

Thank you for your thoughts!

[edited by: msgraph at 2:03 pm (utc) on Feb. 13, 2006]
[edit reason] removed url - TOS #13 [/edit]

[tedster]

One webring? Not a problem as far as I know. (But one link farm could be a potential disaster -- so make sure it is really a webring.)

I had one client who was in a webring and, contrary to what they expected, they got almost no extra traffic from it. It was a highly specialized topic, so they expected something, you know? I didn't notice any effect at all from removing the webring from the site -- either positive or negative. It was one big non-event.

[gendude]

As was said, I'm not sure you'll see that much traffic.

One way of checking if you are unsure - look at all of the member sites of the webring - if any raise any questions in your mind about quality or adverse effects of being linked to them, then don't do it.

If it's 10 or 15 sites for example, and they are all quality sites, or at least not spammers, then go for it.

I'm not sure of the effects of being part of a webring that has a lot of non-updated sites though - most webrings these days seem to have a lot of dead sites.

[Kufu]

I haven't seen a webring in a long time. So I am inclined to say that, you wont really benefit from joining one.

[JollyK]

Before joining a webring, I navigate through the entire thing. Is it broken (i.e. no ring code on a page)? If so, I won't join. Are there quality sites or spamminess? How many sites are in it? If there are hundreds or thousands, you might just get lost in the shuffle unless you're lucky enough to be put next to a high-traffic site, so I don't bother with those. (No sense navigating that many sites if I'm not going to join.)

Most people seem to agree that webrings are pretty much outmoded, but I think that a good quality webring is not a bad thing.

JK

[abates]

I can see a potential hazard in that if the previous or next site in the ring happens to be banned in Google, you might get penalised for linking to them.

I'm on several webrings and I'm thinking of setting rel="nofollow" on the links, because I have no control over what sites the links lead to...

[2by4]

<< I can see a potential hazard in that if the previous or next site in the ring happens to be banned in Google, you might get penalised for linking to them. >>

I avoid these things like the plague, same with link directories, link farms. Even if there isn't a problem today with any one method, there probably will be tomorrow, or next year. The more signs of quality you send google the better. I've pulled almost all my spammy link schemes over the last year, and I'm happy I did.

Doesn't matter what you call something, if it's not a natural link, I don't want it. nofollow is a good option if you want the actual traffic from the links though.

[BigDave]

Generally, I would avoid them with a commercial site. There are some really active hobby related webrings out there that are still doing well, but most commercial sites aren't really welcome in those ones.

[Steelbank]

webring v.s link farm?

Whats the difference?

[send2paul]

webrings.

About four years ago when I first started blogging, I "p.i.m.p.e.d my blog" all over the damned net....lol...including joining zillions of webrings, and having all kinds of additional coding plastered along the sides and bottoms of my blog.

What did it achieve? Nothing. No masssive increase in traffic, no better PR. No better anything really.

With a commercial website I guess you'd be much better off joining a few web forums with a like-minded subject to your website - with the website link in your signature, of course :)

[Lorel]

I've only seen one site benefit from a webring and that was a hobby site.

However be careful with the code--every webring code I've ever seen doesn't validate.

[Wlauzon]

Almost every web ring I have seen quickly becomes broken as sites go dead or change URL's.