The CurrCon Java Applet displays prices on this web page converted with today’s exchange rates into your local
international currency, e.g. Euros, US dollars, Canadian dollars, British Pounds, Indian Rupees… CurrCon requires
Java 1.1 or later, preferably 1.6.0_14. If you can’t see the prices, or if you just
want to learn more about CurrCon, click here for help.
Webring.com is an organisation that helps organise webrings, like-minded websites that link to each other in circle.
on managing and joining them. Though it is actually very simple, about 50% of people who
apply to join rings fail, if they don’t get experienced help. With the rise search engines, the importance of web
rings has declined.
This document will lead you step by step through what to do to get your website on a webring. It sounds complicated, but
you go step by step, you will succeed. Webring.com is an
organisation that helps organise webrings, like-minded websites that link to each other in circle. WebRings bring more
people to your site. WebRings are composed of websites, not email ids. Now there are two levels of membership: Level 1
memberships are free. Level 2 memberships are
per year. With Level 2, Webring will set up the nav bars on your website for you, and other perks. You are not required
to place any ads on your site. To become part of the ring, you embed a piece of JavaScript HTML on your webpage called a navbar
(or sometimes a SSNB — Server Side
Navigation Bar). A nav bar renders something like
this:
People can visit each website in the ring in turn by clicking on the nav bar next button.
The HTML to generate it looks something like this:
There is an alternate version of the nav bar HTML that uses no Javascript at all that lets you customise the way the nav
bar looks.
If you don’t have a website, you can get a free one from an ISP (Internet
Service Provider) such as SimpleNet,
Angelfire or GeoCities.
You can’t join a ring until you have a working website with something on it to show people.
In a pinch, you might borrow a corner of somebody else’s website.
You will need to learn HTML or some HTML generating tool. You will need some simple (often free)
tools to write and validate your HTML. You will need an FTP tool
to upload your creation from your local hard disk to the webserver. I use Netload which
completely automates the process and FTP Voyager to recover when things go off the rails.
The coming instructions look intimidating. Admittedly they are long-winded, but they are not that difficult if you go
step by step. It might help to print out these instructions, and tick them off as you complete each step.
Terminology
hub logo
A large, up to *.gif, *.jpg or *.png
image that is used on the hub page. It is not the same as the nav bar logo. You need both. As a ringmaster, you can
change it with Edit Ring Logo. It can take perhaps half an hour to show up on the websites
after you upload a new logo.
nav bar
navigation bar. A piece of HTML that generates a box representing the web ring on your web page.
Visitors can click to go the next site in the ring or go to the ring hub to join themselves. The nav bar handles all
your webrings for that webpage. You don’t need one per webring. It works because all the different webrings use
the same U# embedded in the nav bar. I like to put them near the bottom of the page so that if something goes wrong, you
can still view the top part of the page.
nav bar logo
sometimes called the ring logo. A 50 × 50*.gif,
*.jpg (but not a *.png) icon that is used on the on the nav bar
page. It is not the same as the hub logo. You need both. As a ringmaster, you can change it with Customization
⇒ Navigation code ⇒ Nav bar logo. It can take perhaps half an hour to show up on the websites after you
upload a new logo.
ring home page
A web page created by the ringmaster giving any information he wants. On my web home pages I give extra explanation
on setting up the nav bar.
SSNB
Server Side Navigation
Bar. A more technical term for the navbar, especially when talking about the magic
numbers it contains to identify the ring and site and webpage.
ring hub
A web page at webring.com for a ring that lists the member
sites. It also gives you a place to join the ring.
ringmaster
The person in charge of a webring. They get to decide who can join and who can’t. They set up the criteria,
and adjudicate them. They also do the administrative work for the ring.
site
Webring uses the word site is two different ways which is very confusing. If you are a ringmaster the sites are the
website that have signed up for your ring. If you are looking at a U# for an URL, then the sites are the rings this site
belongs to.
site URL
An HTTP URL that points to the website, webpage and anchor on the page where you want visitors to arrive. That is
also where you place the nav bar so that visitors can leave for the next site in the ring. URLs are long, so WebRing
assigns each unique URL that you use an abbreviation, called the U#, normally a number but it can contain letters.
community
The new term for WebRing, sometimes called a WebRing community, all the websites on one
ring.
Joining New Rings
This section applies to everyone joining a ring.
Click on Join Now on the nav bar of some site already in the ring and follow your nose. This
will take you to WebRing.com, the company that manages the rings. Alternatively, click here
to go to Webring.com.
If you don’t already have a webring.com login id, you can choose an id and password. You will use this id for all
your rings, not just for the one ring you are joining. click
here to sign up
Click join ring on somebody’s nav bar who is already in the ring, or else find some
ring in the huge hierarchy of possibilities.
You will be asked to describe your site and give its URL. Make sure you give the URL of the page where you plan the
put the nav bar, not your home page (unless of course you plan to put the nav bar on your home page). This is the
landing place where arriving visitors start their tour of your site. It is also the taking off place for them to depart
to the next site on the ring. Giving the wrong URL is the most common error.
Filling in that form will generate an automatic email to me telling me, the ringmaster, that you want to join the ring.
I have to ok your application.
Click My Rings at the top of the page.
Click View websites on the left.
Click Get SSNB code next to the corresponding webring.
It will show you a piece of gobbledegook html something like this. The actual nav bar is not indented or commented like
the one I showed at the top of the page.
This is the nav bar you have been hearing so much about. A single nav bar handles all the rings that use the same URL.
Cut and paste it into your web page. Make sure you get the whole thing including the final </script>.
Don’t copy my nav bars. They won’t work for you. You need to get versions customised for you.
HTMLValidator will complain that the nav bar is not valid HTML, so you might be tempted
to correct it, adding the missing type and quotes. However, if you do that, unfortunately the automated-nav-bar-finder
will fail, and you will find yourself automatically suspended from the ring. You must use the nav bar exactly as
given. use the <cseignore> </cseignore> to tell it to ignore the errors.
The most important thing to understand is that the nav bar must be displayed on the page
where you want the web ring to send visitors when they first land on your site, on the precise URL you told
Webring.com. The automated Webring.com link-checking software is not smart enough to go searching for it. This
rigid scheme has the added benefit of making it easy for users to find the link to the next website after they have
explored your site.
This section is only for advanced users using frames. You have five choices.
Klutzy
: Point Webring directly to the frame containing your rings, and provide a link on that page back to your home page
which then redisplays the surrounding frames. The page will first appear without its normal enclosing frame.
Ruthless
: Put your nav bar on a non-frame page.
Theoretically Correct
: Create a new frameset page very much like your index.html page. The difference is it brings
up your rings page inside the frame instead of the usual default index page. You point Webring.com to that enclosing
frameset page. Unfortunately, Webring cannot always find the nav bar if it is embedded in a frame. At times it seems to,
then loses the ability.
Advanced
: use multiple copies of the nav bar. There will be one landing place and many taking off places. I will explain this in
greater detail later. Use one of the other techniques for your landing place. No matter what else you do, you must
always have a valid nav bar for that URL on the landing page.
Optimisitic
: Just put the nav bar in a frame and hope for the best. It might work.
I repeat. It won’t work to point the URL to your home page, and then hide the nav bar on some other page.
The automatic link checker can’t find the nav bar and it will automatically suspend you. You must put the nav
bar on the exact URL of the page that you tell Webring.com when you join the ring.
Upload the page to your website. Remember to re-upload every time you change the HTML or your site content.
Usually your nav bar will start working within seconds after the ringmaster approves your site. Until then, nothing will
happen, so not to panic. Eventually, the nav bar will eventually show up.
If you don’t get your nav bar successfully installed, the automatic nav bar checker will suspend you. This is so
that people using the ring won’t get stuck when they come to your site. It means nothing at all about the quality
of your site. It is no reason to panic. Further, if for any reason your nav bar stops working at some point in future,
Webring.com will automatically suspend you until you get the problem fixed.
Making Changes
If later you want to change some of the information about your site, such as its name, description or URL, go to Webring.com
and click View Ring Sites.
Then click the line representing your web page. The most likely thing you would want to change is your URL if you decide
to move the nav bar to a new page. Make sure you get a new nav bar when you change the URL. It is confusing,
because the old nav bar may appear to work, at least for a while.
Under the Hood
If you are a novice, just ignore this section. You might wonder why Webrings don’t just have a standard nav bar
link to the Webring site, not needing any customisation at all, no account and no u#. The problem is WebRing would have
no way of knowing where the reference came from, which website and which page on that site the nav bar was located. Many
browsers hide that information. Presumably, WebRing could have put the website referring url in as a parameter, but
instead they chose to encode the same information with an account and a u#. Which a click on the nav bar comes in,
WebRing, looks up that account and that u# to find the website and referring page, and the list of Webrings attached
that u#/page. This gives them a little more control.
It also lets you play games by assigning multiple different u#s to the same page, and hence allowing multiple
independent nav bars on the same page.
Clever readers will have noticed that this scheme also allows you to put your nav bars on several different websites,
all managed by the same account.
Bugs
Before you report a bug check the user guide. It may not be a bug,
but a feature. Here are some of the bugs/shortcomings I have detected in the Webring.com ring management software. If
you notice that any of these have been fixed, please let me know.
These are bugs I discovered at the time Yahoo.com was running the webring. I have not yet retested to see if these bugs
have been fixed. Be wary of them.
Webring.com Bugs
Bug
Fixed?
Description
pending display
Some pending websites are missing from the Your Ring Memberships list.
restricted join
When you join a ring, you cannot join another until the pending status of the first one is resolved. This can take
weeks. You have to buy a level 2 membership to avoid this log jam. This is strictly speaking not a bug, just a very
annoying feature.
tests not propagated
When you test a web page to ensure it has a good nav bar, you it marks only one of the rings as passed. It should
mark all rings that use that page as passed.
failed link lock
If you have a failed link because of a missing or erroneous nav bar, you can’t join any other rings until you
fix the problem. However, even after you fix the problem, you still can’t join. You have to wait until the next
day until some batch process updates your good guy status.
orphaned links
If the webring you are joined to goes defunct, your website will display a random ring rather than a defunct marker.
*.png not supported
If you upload a png for the nav logo or link to one, nothing happens, no error message.
reload collapses stack
If you click reload to view a page, the stack which was showing all webrings collapses to show only one.
wrong ring
Webring often displays nav bars totally unrelated to the U# on the page.
Wrong ringmaster email id
There is no way to change the ringmaster’s email id.
ringmaster change
There is no way to have a new ringmaster take over.
Nav bar finder can’t find the nav bar if HTML errors in it are corrected.
Can’t find old gif-style ring logo
Nav bar finder can’t see the old graphics style nav bars previously used when webrings.org managed the rings.
It thinks the link is broken.
frames confuse nav bar
Nav bar finder can’t see a nav bar in a frame. It thinks the link is broken.
bad sort
Your personal list of rings are not sorted in alphabetical or any other meaningful order. In contrast, ringmaster
can order the sites in the ring any way they choose.
url not displayed
The list of all rings you are joined to does not display the URLs of your web pages.
ringmaster hamstrung
Ringmasters can’t correct spelling and grammatical errors in site descriptions. They can’t correct URLs.
They can’t get nav bars for people to insert in HTML and send back for upload.
wrong ordering
Ringmasters are asked to approve websites before the nav bars are installed. Sites without nav bars should never be
activated.
invalid email ids
Webring.com approves rings sites where there is no way to contact the site manager by email.
ring home page
Webmaster cannot explicitly designate the ring’s home page.
restart
When ringmasters manage sites, the lists start over at the beginning each time, rather than picking up where you
left off.
mysterious nav bar codes
Nav bars use a special code that ties them to a particular page. You can’t verify they are correct, other than
by installing new nav bars. I think it might be possible to have standard nav bars that can be safely duplicated moved
about, even between sites. Not a single member of one of my rings was able to successfully install a nav bar!
dead rings
Most rings are dead. These is no way before you go to the effort of joining to see when the ringmaster last did any
ring management.
nav bar test
There is no way to trigger a bulk retest of multiple broken nav bars. There is no way to know how fresh the test
results are.
nav bar box too small
Box where you pick up the nav bar is too small to let you view it all at once or copy/paste it without scrolling.
nav bar icon preview
After you change the nav bar icon, webring does not show it to you to make sure you picked an appropriate image. You
can’t proof it on your website either, since the change does not become visible till somewhat later. Your mistakes
should not be viewed by the public. Webring rejected my bug report on this saying it properly should be submitted as a
wish list request and asked that I start over from scratch in my submission.
png support
You can use png for the ring hub image but not for the nav bar icon.
Ring image does not display.
Even when you have a ring image, it does not display in the editing screens.
ugly image
There need to be two images, one tiny one 32 × 32 for the nav bar and one big
one 150 × 150 to decorate the ring hub. They used to use only one mid-size image
and send it for both purposes. So it looked ugly decorating the ring hub and wasted bandwith for the nav bar icon.
The more people who report a given bug, the more likely Webring.com is to take the bug report seriously, and to give
that bug priority.
Trouble Shooting
Webring carefully hides the button to get it to verify/ test your
latest nav bar upload. click my account ⇒ manage memberships ⇒ Go HERE if you want
to see/manage/edit the sites that you have in other rings. (aka My websites in URL Order)⇒
click on the site title (middle colum), not on the pass/fail ⇒ click on test (just
after The status of your navigation code is: Fail, half way down the page in the fine print.)
Oddly, you can’t access the test from the Go HERE to manage your website URL, U#, get
navigation code, view your SSNB stack(s), etc. (aka My websites in URL Order) screen.
If your nav bar test fails, double check the following:
Is the nav bar on the exact same URL you told Webring.com? If not, either tell Webring.com (on the appropriate form) the
correct place or move the nav bar to the correct page.
Get a fresh nav bar. Nav bars only work properly on the page they were created for.
Don’t change the nav bar HTML in any way. Don’t even put a carriage return in the middle of it. Once you get
it working you can try tidying up the HTML checking all the time that the tests for nav bar presence still works and all
its buttons still work.
Scan your website to make sure the u#s are unique and that they match the Webring.com records.
If you rename a webpage containing a nav bar, you must tell WebRing the new URL it is associated with. You can keep the
same U#, just tell WebRing point it to the new URL. If you get confused, just install a new nav bar with a different u#.
On the Go HERE to manage your website URL, U#, get navigation code, view your SSNB stack(s),
etc. (aka My websites in URL Order) screen you will sometimes see Delete SSNB code
beside an entry. This means there are no living webrings associated with that web page any more. You should either
delete the nav bar from your page and the entry from WebRing, or join some suitable rings. These defunct pages will not
show up at all in the click my account ⇒ manage memberships ⇒ Go HERE if you want
to see/manage/edit the sites that you have in other rings (aka Your Ring Memberships) page.
Alternatives
See RingSurf, a competing WebRing scheme. If you hope to hide from nav bars by going to
RingSurf you are out of luck. They are in the process of converting to nav bars too. RingSurf and Webring.com nav bars
are handled completely independently. If you have both RingSurf and Webring.com rings on the same page, you need both a
RingSurf and a Webring.com nav bar.
Once you get the hang of it, joining WebRings is easy. You don’t have to keep adding more nav bars past the first
one. You can browse the list of existing rings. and join the
ones you like, or just chase the links visiting sites exploring the creativity of your fellow humans.
To make all the webrings show up in the nav bar, configure the size of the stack on the WebRing site. Otherwise visitors
to your site have to click “Visit a complete list of WebRing memberships here” in fine print,
to see the other rings. The effect can take 30 minutes or so to show up.
Starting Your own WebRing
If you don’t see a suitable WebRing to join, you can create
your own WebRing. All you need is a logo gif in both 50 × 50 for the nav bars
and 150 × 150 (up to 250x250) for the hub. pixels, best with a transparent
background, that you could prepare with Paint Shop Pro. Browse the Webring.com
categories to find where it would fit, then click create a ring and follow your nose. At
first you will tend to get lost in the menus. Be patient with yourself and you will find you can soon manage several
rings with very little effort. The real work talking people into joining your ring. It is hard at the beginning and gets
easier as the ring grows and becomes ever more attractive.
It works best if you provide a URL instead uploading your logos. Your server will be faster than theirs. Also they seem
to compress and distort the images, so the URL method gives nicer looking images.
Webring automatically tests member sites periodically to make sure they are properly installed. They can fail or pass or
pass-L. Pass-L means he put the nav bar on a different page from where incoming visitors land,
but that they can get to the nav bar to leave in one link. Typically visitors land on the home page, and click webrings
to get to the nav bars. It is a judgement call whether you should allow these. I do not. They make it harder for
visitors to navigate to the next link.
If you have trouble with one of the rings I manage, you can email me ator
phone me, Roedy Green, at (250) 361-9093. That is in Victoria, BC Canada. However, there are many things I cannot
do for you.
I can’t put your nav ring in for you (unless you trust me with your ISP id/password and FTP trivia) to upload the
finished result.
Unless you give me your Webring.com id/password, I can’t change your URL.
Unless you give me your Webring.com id/password, I can’t change your site name.
Unless you give me your Webring.com id/password, I can’t change your site description.
You normally have to do all those things for yourself.
2007-03-23 by Roedy Green ©1996-2009 Canadian Mind Products
WebRing
community
or
phone me, Roedy Green, at (250) 361-9093. That is in Victoria, BC Canada. However, there are many things I cannot
do for you.
Please email your feedback for publication, errors, omissions, broken/redirected link reports
