What do I need on my webring's homepage?

While you can put whatever you like on your ring's homepage, here are a few things that we recommend:

• A description of what your webring is all about, how it works, and how a member would join the ring.
• Something telling prospective members what the requirements to join are.
• A link to the Join page or a join form for prospective members to submit their site to your webring.
• Your webring's navpanel, with instructions on where it should be placed within their website.
• A link to the Siterings. You are provided this service absolutely free, and all we ask in return is that you link to us somewhere on your webring's homepage.
• A few examples:   Example-1    Example-2    Example-3

What are the URLs to navigate my ring as entered in the 'Customize HTML code' in Ring Admin?

These are substitutes that can be used in the customized code:
[ringtitle] Ring title
[cgiURL] URL to folder with CGI files (next.pl etc.)
[siteid] Site ID
[sitetitle] Site title
[wmname] The site's webmaster name

Here are the navigation commands, followed by their respective URLs:

Next Site
[cgiURL]/next.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

Previous Site
[cgiURL]/prev.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

Next 5 Sites
[cgiURL]/next5.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

Previous 5 Sites
[cgiURL]/prev5.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

Random Site
[cgiURL]/rand.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

List All Sites
[cgiURL]/list.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

The Ring Homepage
[cgiURL]/home.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

Search The Ring
[cgiURL]/search.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

The Ring's Statistics
[cgiURL]/stats.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=[siteid]

Replace RINGID with your own ring's ID).

[Return To FAQ]

What other URLs do I need to know?

The URL to submit a new site to your ring is:
http://www.siterings.net/cgi-bin/ringlink/newsite.pl?ringid=RINGID
[if you are not placing a joining form on your ring's home page]

The URL to manage your ring is:
http://www.siterings.net/cgi-bin/ringlink/ringadmin.pl?ringid=RINGID
[if you are not using the ringadmin form on Siterings's home page]

The URL for members to manage their site is:
http://www.siterings.net/cgi-bin/ringlink/siteadmin.pl?ringid=RINGID;siteid=SITEID
[if you are not placing a siteadmin form on your ring's home page]

The URL for members to search your ring is:
http://www.siterings.net/cgi-bin/ringlink/search.pl?ringid=RINGID

[You'll need to replace RINGID with your ring's id, and SITEID with the site's id].

[Return To FAQ]

How do I have the joining application form on my ring's homepage?

To have the joining application form on your homepage, you'll have to copy and paste an HTML code. To get the code click here.
Remember, you have to customize the code for your ring.

[Return To FAQ]

How do I have the site admin form on my ring's homepage?

To have the site admin form on your homepage, you'll have to copy and paste an HTML code. To get the code click here.
Remember, you have to customize the code for your ring.

[Return To FAQ]

How do I automatically list the number of member sites on my ring's homepage?

Example: "We currently have 48 rings in this webring!" Where the number is updated automatically.

This JavaScript code displays the current number of member sites in your ring:

<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://www.siterings.net/sitecount/RINGID.js">
</script>

[You'll need to replace RINGID with your ring's ID remember it is case-sensitive!]

[Return To FAQ]

How do I get sites to join my ring?

The best way to get sites to join your ring is to go out and invite them! Search for sites on the internet that would qualify for your ring. Email the webmaster, inviting them to join your ring. Explain the benefits of being in a webring, and that you would like their site to be apart of your webring. After you have an established ring, many sites will find it on their own, and join that way. You need to do some promoting first though!
[An example email can be found at the Message Templates page under letter E]

[Return To FAQ]

How else can I promote my ring?

1. Once your webring has at least 3 member websites, then list it in the Ringlink Webring Directory, and the WOW Webring Directory. You can easily do this for the Ringlink Directory in Ring admin by clicking the "Directory" button.
2. Post your webring's website to at least 2 search engines. http://www.google.com/addurl.html and http://dmoz.org/, and ....
3. Announce your webring in the Show and Tell Forum.

[Return To FAQ]

How does the "Check Sites" feature work in Ring admin?

The ring checker works by looking for certain lines of code on the "HTML Code URL' page that your members submitted. It will not work if the page is in frames or if it's an entrance page. Encourage your new members to put in the absolute URL of the HTML Code URL when submitting their sites so as to take care of this problem.

[Return To FAQ]

Why can't I send my members an email from Ring admin?

The "Send email" feature will provide you with a list of all the email addresses of the members of your ring. You can choose to get only the active or the inactive sites or all email addresses. You will then have to copy and paste the addresses in your own email client. The reason for this is to minimise complaints of us spamming.
It is also recommended that you do not spam your own members.

[Return To FAQ]

How does the ring statistics feature work?

The sites are sorted descending by the number of hits they have generated when their visitors have clicked the links on their site's navpanel. The numbers are presented as hits per day, and the calculations are based on (max) a 30 days period. The stats for an average ring site are displayed as well. The stats feature adequately answers questions like "how is my site doing compared to the other sites in the ring", and "what additional traffic can I expect if I join this webring".

It is possible to include a link to the stats page in the navigation panel. It is also advisable to provide a link to the stats somewhere at the ring's homepage.

To reduce server load, the summary stats are not available in real time, but the numbers are calculated once a day (around 3:45 am local time).

You will find the stats for an individual site in "Site admin", and summary stats for a ring are available via:

http://www.THIS-SYSTEM.com/cgi-bin/ringlink/stats.pl?ringid=RINGID

(You'll need to replace RINGID with your ring's id)

[Return To FAQ]

Why does it say "no summary statistics available yet"?

Don't worry about this. Since the stats is presented as average hits per day, it must be working a couple of days before there is any meaningful data to present.

[Return To FAQ]

Why isn't my ring listed in the "Ring List" for Siterings?

You need to have at least 3 active sites in your ring to be listed in the Ring List.

[Return To FAQ]

I entered my customized navpanel code in ringadmin, but the colors in my tables within my navpanel as displayed on the "Get code" and "Customize HTML" code pages are overridden by colors?

The HTML output generated by the Ringlink program that powers Siterings makes use of style sheets for controlling the colors of background/text and links.

[ see http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/styles.html ]

The background color of the tables on the "Get code" and "Customize HTML" code pages are controlled by setting the background for the TD element using the STYLE element in the HEAD section. This setting overrides the "bgcolor" for any other table on the same page.

Because the use of "bgcolor" for setting the background color of tables is deprecated, style sheets were used instead. A similar result will occur if some of your ring's members also use style sheets for their wesites. If they do, your set background/text and link colors as displayed within your navpanel, will also NOT be displayed as you wished on their web pages either.

So, the best solution would be to use the style attribute for controlling the colors of background/text and links in the ring code for your ring's navpanel, or better yet use a image map for your ring's navpanel!

See here for further explanation.

[Return To FAQ]

How do I prevent my webring's members
from loading my ring's navpanel image(s) from my web server?

If you do not want your ring's members to load your ring's navpanel image(s) from your web server, then you need to place your image(s) in the same directory where your ring's home page is located.

'Ringlink', the program that powers Siterings will display navpanel image(s) on the "Get Code" and "Customize HTML Code" pages if they are so located.

In other words instead of listing the full url to the image, you can just enter the name of the image
(<img src="YOURNAVPANEL_IMAGE.jpg"...>).
You would then have display a notice (as shown below) on your ring's homepage:

[Return To FAQ]

What is a Quality webring?

1. A webring that has a clear topic.
2. The webring's home page is informative, well organized, user friendly, and pleasantly designed.
3. The ringmaster checks regularly that the topic of all member websites are relevent to the webring.
4. It is a webring that has no broken links.
5. The webring's navpanel is displayed prominently on all member websites.
   On preferably the index page, or on a appropriate content page, and not hidden on a lowly 'webring' page, or other page deep within the website.
6. Navpanels must be attractive, quick loading, user friendly, and have at least the 'next', 'home' and 'random' links displayed. They must also require no 'gimmicks' such as JavaScript.
7. A webring whose member sites display the navpanels for no more than 3 webrings on any one page or stacked stacked or have a link to 'My other Webrings' displayed.
8. The webring's home page and all member websites load quickly, are free of popups, 'screaming' banner adds or include 'free' forum pages such as Yahoo! and MSN groups.
9. The webring's home page and all member websites are not hosted on 'free' web hosts such as Geocities and Tripod.
10. A webring that enhances a site instead of detracting from it.
    Whose every member is proud to be a member of the ring, and feels it adds value to his or her website.

[Return To FAQ]

Are you working on any improvements for Siterings?

We will always try to improving our system and keep our site updated with the latest versions of the Ringlink program.

The Ringlink program is working on new features like:

• Extended ring customization possibilities
• Addition of a "notes" section to each site
• Option to change site IDs from "Ring admin"
• Option to let the checker look for a submitted string
• Option to attach images for the navpanel to the add mail message
• Possibility to register site language, and an option to restrict navigation of a ring to sites with a certain registered language

If you have a suggestion, feel free to share your ideas with the Ringlink's Forum

[Return To FAQ]