Weblog Rings

Webrings have been in existence for a long time now. Essentially, they are formed of individual sites that link to other, similar sites to help increase interest—and traffic!

Weblog rings are an extension of the same concept, but specific to weblogs rather than Web sites in general. When you join a weblog ring, you will be asked to have either a text link and/or linked image on your site to another site within the ring. In turn, other members of the weblog ring link to your site, creating the “ring” concept.

Blogmania

Blogmania is a great example of a general weblog ring. To become a member of the ring, follow these steps:

1.	Log on to www.blogmania.com.
2.	Click the Join link. You'll be taken to the site submission page (see Figure 23.12). Figure 23.12. The submission page for Blogmania. [View full size image]
3.	Fill in the form, and then click the Add Your Site button.
4.	You'll receive an email with the webring code. Add this to an appropriate place within your weblog index template in your Movable Type configuration.
5.	Rebuild your site with the webring code intact.

You're now part of the Blogmania webring!

Special-Interest Weblog Rings

Along with general-interest weblog rings, there are weblog rings based on common interests. These rings can be especially useful to bring those readers looking for information on a given topic to your site.

Some of the common interest weblog ring topics we've found include

• Rings devoted to a specific country and language

• Rings focused on current events and news

• Rings concerned with computing topics

• Family, baby, and wedding weblog rings

• Religious weblog rings

• Photography weblog rings

Because so many weblogs and weblog ring-types are out there, we'll offer some of our favorites in the “Interesting Weblog Rings” sidebar. To find more weblog rings, do a search on the term “weblog ring” along with your topic of interest (such as “weblog ring Judaism”) from your favorite search engine.