Introduction
I completely rewrote my original History of Webrings page in July 2021, a couple of months later in October, Ash posted to my Guestbook that perhaps I was wrong and that webrings are making a comeback mostly due to the interest in creating personal websites created by Neocities.
The original webring systems provided a list so you could choose to join an existing webring or create your own and these were usually confined to single subjects, some of which were very loosely defined. The new webrings have a different view in that most of the webrings I looked at are not confined to a particular subject, so you jump from site to site not quite knowing what you are going to get.
The List
I did a search for these new-style webrings and have so far found the following. Most are for non-commerical, personal sites which is what webrings were originally made for. As the big webring systems have gone, it's just as easy to list the individual rings. I make no promises about this directory, just that when I visited them they were working.
The list has been compiled with a lot of help from the owner of foreverliketh.is, the MelonLand Forum community, and the ring masters kind enough to email me.
Recently added webrings:
BlogR, Bug Ring, Buttonring, Curiosity, Eastern Religion, Firestoners, Fubuki, Gal Domei-N, Gimmiko, Glaze, Godotring, Hack Club Hardware Ballers, Hajakehä (Diffuse), Hudson, HumanRing, In the Reads, Inabakumoring, IndieRing (new URL), IndieWebClub Bangalore, Jashring, JoJo's Bizarre, Kiwebring, Las Vegas Business, Lynx, MeowRing, Mudring, Night Island, Patho, Penspinning, Pinkcredible (back), RoArg, SSI, Teach the Cat, The Small Web Ring, The Worst, Uniqfox, Web Dev & Design, and White Rabbit
This list is created from a Google Sheet using the Google Charts API to display it. I know from previous experience of doing this it is certainly faster and easier for me to update and maintain. For example, the links only have to be made once.
I have attempted to broadly categorize the webrings. The columns are sortable so click on the column header to sort them to make them more accessible. Please contact me if you think a webring is in the wrong group or suggest a new grouping.
There are some pages around that are entitled "Webrings" but are simply a list of sites or offer reciprocal links. I have not listed these as they do not appear to me as true webrings. In October 2023, I changed my definition of what a webring is again. At a minimum, the sites that belong to one must include must include previous and next site navigation links, and not just a link or icon leading back to a site listing page.
I find it disappointing that when I checked the webrings in October 2023, only 1/5 (20%) of them could be navigated properly using just the next button on the pages. There were only a couple of reasons that the navigation failed: the website had completely disappeared or I couldn't find the webring code on any of the pages. A couple of sites made it very difficult to follow the links because they opened the next site in the ring in a tiny iframe that made it hard if not impossible to view it properly.
If you know of a webring not listed here, please email me at and I will add it.
Suspended or Closed Webrings
Sometimes webrings become closed or suspended. These webrings still (mostly) work but do not appear to be accepting new members.
Defunct, Missing, and Unresponsive Webrings
Unfortunately even since beginning to find and list the new style webrings in December 2022, there are rings that have disappeared or otherwise no longer function. There could be any number of reasons for this including boredom with running them, technical issues and time.
Of the rings that I applied to join but never got a reply, it could be that I have been ghosted, that is they looked at the site but rather than telling me that it has been rejected didn't reply at all. Rather than lose the information, and because the rings may reappear at some later date, I have listed them here.
The list of all the webrings this site belongs to can be found here.
Other Webring Lists
Here are some other webring directories you might like to visit:
Bede
NightcoreAndCaffeine
PetraPixel
Ringlink
Tuffgrounds
Vastrec
Why are there different numbers of webrings in these lists? It takes time and a bit of effort to keep these lists accurate. I update mine almost daily and recalculate the statistics for them towards the end of the month. To me, the webring widget should contain at least "previous" and "next" buttons, so do not include those with just a "random" button. That's just my personal preference.
Ringlink and Anvilfire
Ringlink (Internet Archive) was written in Perl by Gunnar Hjalmarsson in 2000. The final version (Internet Archive), v3.3 was made available in 2009, shortly after which the site closed down. Gunnar published it under the GNU General Public License. Several webring systems appear to have used Ringlink to manage the webrings. Gunnar published the code to SourceForge and it is still there in January 2023. It is also available here. Download (ZIP, 324Kb)
Some ring masters also decided to use Gunnar's code and host it themselves. One such was the author of Anvilfire, a blacksmithing and metalworking resource. They ran five webrings using Webring run by Yahoo!. In 2000, they became disillusioned with Yahoo! and started using Gunnar's Ringlink. Their webring page is still up (July 2023) but seems to have been inactive since 2008.
Anvilfire's webrings were:
Ancient Trades Webring (15 members)
Architectural Metals Webring (Created but no members)
Blacksmith's Webring (188 members)
Country Life & Heritage Webring (5 members)
Steelworkers Webring (43 members)
Some Explanations
I'm either getting old or lived a very sheltered life. It's not really either, some of these concepts have been around for years, I just had to look up the terms to ensure I put the correct terms in the webring notes.
Alterhuman / Otherkin
Some rings are for people who identify as alterhuman or otherkin, someone who believe themselves not quite, more than, or different to the rest of us. Alterhuman and Otherkin
Chunibyo
Some of the above may be described as Chunibyo, a Japanese word roughly meaning "middle school 2nd year syndrome", and even more generically, a symptom of teenage angst. Chunibyo
Fediverse / Indieweb
A rejection, at least in part, of commercial internet companies. Fediverse and Indieweb
Furries
People with an interest, to one degree or other, in anthropomorphic animal characters. Furry Fandom
Shipping
Shipping is the relationship between two people, either real-life celebrities or fictional characters. Shipping and Shipping Fandom
