webrings: effect on ranking

Would webrings be looked as just another kind of cross-linking or
would they attract different treatment from the Big G?

What is webring?

A webring is a group of websites, usually with a common theme, that are linked together by html code placed on at least one page of each web site. This allows site visitors to click through and visit as many of the sites in the ring as visitor wishes. Example: http://dir.webring.com/rw

My understanding is that Google frowns on webrings in general. I avoid them on my websites for that reason.

Basically you get 1 link from an index of webring sites that is PR dividend by the number of webring-linked sites, a possibly 4 others that are based on other sites in the ring 5, 1 positions before you and 1, 5 positions after you.

In retrospect a webring is a drain on your website's developed resources and really only adds to the resident owner > which in all cases is Yahoo. e.g. all sites point to the ring index and this resides on Yahoo.

In addition -- this is a modified link farm > thus Google does not like them. In most instances though they rarely get penalized or banned since the vast majority are relatively a very small network.

Thanks a ton, fathom, for putting it in proper perspective.
I'll keep my bargepole away from that stuff!!

On the other hand Webrings do send you very quality traffic as the other members in the ring usuaklly are like minded sites. So lets put search engine stuff in perspective, who are you trying to please on your site, real visitors or a spider.
Google rules, as much as Darrin is digusted due to his PR0 and then his own emergency removal reaction from google BUT good site design, links to the right sites, and quality content is what will be successful in the end (for the visitor and for google ratings). Come on Googleguy agree with me.

Shedman does have a point > however in perspective (and webring dependent) few visitors (although, probably highly targeted) come from these links.

There are much better ways to get good solid links that produce qualified traffic.

I agree with fathom that usually trafic through webrings is low but i feel that at times seo can be taken to the extreeme where a site becomes an optimized robot trap and gets quite visitor unfriendly. All I am saying is build and write content for web sites for people but keeping robots in mind. Even I got trapped the other day when I was reviewing a visitor submitted article to one of my databases and was wondering how more search terms could be worked into it, how stupid is that.

On one of my sites I get a fair amount of traffic from a webring. Not sure how much of this converts to sales though since the large majority of it is from people clicking the "NEXT SITE" link on the webring code box. My guess is they are probably casual surfers popping in.