Wiki's Definition of a Blog

A blog ring starts with a bit of code added to two or more (hopefully lots more) blogs that links them together. Sometimes there's an icon or photo associated with the ring, and usually the words "Join" | "Next" | "Prev" are shown - meaning that you can click one of the words to either join the ring, go to the next blog in the ring or go to the blog that is sequenced previous to the one you are on.

So basically a blog ring is a way to connect blogs.

What makes them appealing is that they are not random connections, or static links (linking just one site to another) but rather a chain link of related blogs - and that's where things get fun.

When you channel surf on TV, you can get commercials, pre-season clips, half of a tv show or a chunk of a movie and that's it. No backing up, no putting things on hold and no looking to see what was on an hour ago that you missed.

Not so with blogs!! They are more interesting because real people are blogging about things they love! It's easy to search the archives of a blog that really intrigues you, and if the blog is a wash, it's easy to just click "Next" on the ring and see what the next blog in the ring is all about.

Ring owners organize their rings by interest or topic or region or some other commonality, meaning that each blog will have something in common with the next.

Maybe you love RC Car racing and want to surf blogs on that topic or you are a quilter and you want to find other quilters. It can be really fun to see what other people who share your interest are blogging about daily.

So, how do you find those rings? There are a few ring hosts, some free and some commercialized. Let's start with free. Start here with alt-webring.com and see if any of these rings match what you are looking for. If not, you can try the navigation process at RingSurf.com by clicking here.

What happens if you can't find a ring that fits what you are looking for? Try Google Blog Search and type in a few words that pertain to your interests. You may come up with a few blogs to look at, and be sure to check their sidebars for links to any blog rings that they belong to.

If you are a blogger yourself and you want people to find and enjoy your blog, it's pretty easy to create a blog ring, and once you have your blog and one or two others, the word will get out and the ring membership will grow. Before you get started there are few things to understand about how rings are hosted - it makes a difference.

You can create your own ring, writing your own html code, or you can use a free, non-commercial site that requires a little bit of coding and maintenance, or you can use a commercial site (still free, so far...) that frames the blogs in the rings with ads and directs the traffic for you.

I am guessing that if you are reading this, you neither know nor want to learn enough HTML to be able to build your own ring (I didn't!) so let's go to the free option first. It might take a little bit of code tweaking, so if this scares you, jump ahead to the commercially sponsored ring section (although I am going to give you all the tips I used to make my rings work).

You can build a direct, blog to blog to blog, ring at alt-webring.com. See the step-by-step below.

A few things to know:
You are asked to have a web page where you will post the requirements for joining your ring and a link to the join page (or you can create a join form on your site);

The alt-webring site will create, format and personalize the linking code and the box that you place on your blog, however sometimes the default code makes a box that is too wide for the sidebar of your blog or one of the blogs in your ring. I found it helpful to change the width from the default of 350 to 150. You can change the border to -0- if you don't want to see them. If you want a logo with your ring, you can create one (WordArt in MS Word, a drawing in Paint, whatever works for you).

So, once you create the ring (this catches me every time!) you actually have to go join it! Submit your site using either the sign up form that you created on your website or the default one on alt-webring.com

By doing so you will be able to help others through the process when they join.

I require that the ring code be placed on the sidebar of every blog in the ring and here's why: some bloggers have 50 posts on their blog (all on 1 page, with tons of photos) and they place the code on the absolute bottom of the page, requiring the reader to wait for it to all be loaded before they can see the code (to move on to the next site) and even then it can be hard to find. Requiring that the code be on a sidebar means that a reader who wants to exit a site can do so fairly quickly.

If you want the easiest route and are willing to let another site host the surfing process and insert advertising, you can use RingSurf but you should understand that once a reader clicks off of your blog and into the ring, they are really on Ringsurf.com at all times - meaning that they cannot capture the URL for any blogs that they hit and therefore they cannot bookmark any interesting blogs that they find. Many ringsurf users do not like this and the ringmasters are moving their rings because of it.

If you create your own ring you should understand that there is a degree of maintenance that is required to keep the ring working. You should surf your ring regularly, checking that each blog has the code installed in a visible place and that the blog owners are posting new content regularly that fits the profile for your ring. It might sound like work, but it's really fun and it gives you an 'excuse' for surfing!

Here's my layman's description of how a ring works on Alt-webring. When you create a ring, the ring gets its own unique ID.

Each time a site/blog is added to the ring, that blog gets its own unique ID that identifies its place in the ring. Alt-webring generates several lines of html code that incorporates both unique IDs (the ring and that blog) and sends it to the blogger to put on his/her blog.

When a reader clicks the "Next" button (for example), the html code first identifies which blog the reader is on by it's ID and then goes to the ring ID and looks at what blog is next on the ring list and then sends the reader to that blog.

1. Create the ring here click here by using the sidebar on the left, In the NAVIGATION MENU click on "Create a webring" - use this for blogrings or webrings - it works the same.

2. Fill in the blanks

--- remember that the ring list is Alphabetical, so when you go to find your ring again whatever you put in as the RING TITLE is what it will be called from now on.

--- the ring homepage should be the page that you want your members to sign up on. This can be a page in a website or a blog page. You will install some code on this page, as well as store any image that you want to associate with the ring.

--- RINGID should be a short name for the ring - this will be the code word that the ring uses as it moves viewers and surfers along the ring, from blog to blog or web to web. Try and use a few letters or letter/number combination and make it in CAPS so that if you alter any ring code (once it is created) you will always be able to see you ring name in the code. For example, for my ring "Quilt Designers" I gave it a site ID of QDESIGN and for my ring "Alaskan Quilters" I gave it a site ID of AKQUILT.

--- Use a short password that you NEVER use anywhere else - this is not a secure site. Write it down.

--- Ringmaster is you!

--- Ringmaster email is the email where you will get notices every time someone wants to join your ring.

--- Leave the rest of the stuff set just like it is and hit SUBMIT

FIX the code to fit your blog and any others by changing the code slightly. You can also add an image to be associated with the ring code. Here's how:

1. Log into the ring on the upper right hand corner of the page under RING ADMIN.
2. Click CUSTOMIZE on the left hand navigation bar.
3. Click APPEARANCE to change colors for the ring text and border and to add an image to the ring code - note that this image must ALWAYS stay where you say it is when you add it. In other words, the code goes to this image for each blog. If you give an image now and take it off your site later there will be no image for the code to use. If you don't know much about html - don't go to this step.
4. Click on HTML CODE on the left hand navigation pane.
5. Scroll down to the code in the scrollable window.
6. See on the second line where it says table width="350
7. Change 350 to 150
8. Click SAVE CURRENT CODE

Click HOME and or RING ADMIN

--- Fill out the form as if you were joining any other ring - in other words, put in the name of your blog as the site title, describe your blog a little bit and add some keywords. Put your blog home page as the Site Entry URL and leave the next field empty. Give your site an ID - and here's what that means: as blog ring surfers click on the ring links (NEXT, PREV, RANDOM) the code must first look at the blog that they are on and find it on the list, in order to execute the command. Site ID is how the html code knows what blog the surfer is on and which one to send them to next. If you don't follow this, it's ok just do this: type a short ID (that you make up) for your blog (like 123ABC) it really doesn't matter (use CAPS!). This is just so that Alt-Webring can create code that refers to your blog.

--- Give a different password - one that is not used anywhere else - this is not a secure site. This is only used if you need to log in and ask for your code again or need to change your email address - stuff like that. Write it down.
--- Put in your name and enter your email address and then SUBMIT.

WAIT.

Alt-webring.com will email you the code. This code is specific to your blog because it contains your blog ID, and that's how the ring works to move readers from blog to blog (it really moves them from blog ID to blog ID).

When you get the email, go to your blog layout page and (this is how you do it on Google Blogger) open a Page Element for HTML. Copy the code directly from your email to the page element window for html. Use copy and paste (ctrl + letter C to copy) and (ctrl + letter V to paste). SAVE and then go look at your blog to be sure everything looks the way that you want it to.

Please note that you can use this same method to add sites to your ring. You can do all of the work of adding the site info (including making up a password) to the ring with just the URL of the site and the email for the webmaster/blogger. The code will be emailed to the member and they will need to install in on their web or blog.

Keep a small text file with a built in link to the join page and use it to send emails to bloggers that you would like to join your ring.

You want to be able to point them to the alt-webring page for joining your ring very easily. Here's the email that I use (be sure to include your email so that they can ask you questions if they have any):

I invite you to join the Quilt Designers Blog Ring here
http://www.alt-webring.com/cgi-bin/newsite.pl?ringid=NAMEOFYOURRINGHERE
We are quilt pattern designers and quilt book authors who blog about our quilting and our lives. By being in the ring we increase our exposure to the blog surfing world and gain exposure and interest in our quilt patterns and books.

If you have any questions I would be happy to answer them.

You can also just have the interested party email you their desire to join the ring and you can sign them up yourself - it's your choice - but they still have to install the code once it it emailed to them.

Once your ring is operational and you start inviting bloggers to join, you will have to go to alt-webring.com and log into your ring as Admin and approve sites/blogs before they will become active.

I do this in a 3 step process:

Log in to your ring in the upper right hand corner, under Ring Admin, and click the EDIT RING button.

Click on INACTIVE SITES in the left hand navigation pane.

Click the http:/ link on any site listed and see if the ring code is installed where you want it. Remember, it's not working yet because you haven't accepted the site/blog into your ring, you are just checking to see if the code is installed.

If all looks well to you, click on ACTIVATE (circled in pink).

Remember to surf your ring regularly to see if every site/blog still has the code installed and that it is working, and to be sure that the content on the site/blog is appropriate for your ring.