Xenite.Org News

Xenite.Org discontinuing all Webring activity

June 06, 2002 at 06:03:21

It has been decided that Xenite.Org will no longer participate in Webring services.

After much consideration, it has become apparent that we are no longer benefitting from our participation in Webings enough to justify the time required to maintain all the code. And although applications to various Webrings we operate continue to arrive, we are unable to process them in a timely fashion.

The original Webring service once provided a great boon to struggling sites seeking new traffic. But with the move to Yahoo!, and then away from Yahoo!, Webring has lost a lot of support from the Webmastering community. Now, needing revenues, they have begun selling advertising which will appear in the rings.

Although Ringsurf, Bravenet, and a few other companies offer alternatives to Webring, the time involved in reviewing and approving or rejecting applicant sites has proven to be too much of a demand on our resources. We have been unable to respond to applications in a timely fashion for months.

A review of the performance statistics for the Webrings we operate indicates to us that very few member sites are receiving any traffic from the Webrings. Hence, it's time to just discontinue all Webring activity.

Xenite.Org operates 8 Webrings each on Webring.Com and Ringsurf. But we currently have 34 pages participating in Webrings. Every time Webring has changed its system, we have had to update all those pages, as well as try to inform our Webring member sites of how the changes affect them.

It's time to say good-bye to Webrings. We hope everyone who has participated in these Webrings has received some benefit. We know many of you participate in multiple Webrings, so perhaps it will make no difference to you. But we hope that we'll be able to free up some resources with this decision.

Our old Webring homepages will remain in place, but they are being updated to reflect the fact that the Webrings are shutting down.