I like the webring idea but I would hope finding the right server would be automated, clicking through thousands of servers sounds exhausting.
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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I like the webring idea
Really? It wasn't even really even popular when it was popular. Search engines quickly became a better way to find things. webrings were always broken.
The details are in the work, but there is consideration for enabling a preference to automatically select the fastest server.
I've also considered making servers announce load reports, telling other servers how much load they are under, that way a server can be selected via both fastest and least under-load.
This might even be an appropriate use for AI (maybe even running in-browser for privacy). I imagine something that reads your prompt and auto-populates a few rings to search. You review and edit the suggested rings, then click search.
no one can index exponential amounts of data, nevermind the predatory SEO and AI.
Google is. The NSA almost undoubtedly is. A bunch of other governments are. AI companies probably are. Meta probably is.
When a user wants to search something up, they first search for a topic in web-rings, and then they select that web-ring.
From a usability perspective, that doesn't feel great. How does a user find the first web ring search engine? What if they don't want that multi step process? How do users avoid predatory web rings that are trying to sell them stuff? How does this compete with existing search?
How does a user find the first web ring search engine?
The implication is that such functionality is bundled into this search engine.
What if they don't want that multi step process?
Hard thing, but what are a few steps toavoiding AI spam results?
How do users avoid predatory web rings that are trying to sell them stuff?
That's a moderation issue, alluded to being a problem that should be figured out separate to figuring out this web-ring federation.
How does this compete with existing search?
Existing on the sidelines and possibly leaching off DDG users who want a less bing dependent search.
What if they don't want that multi step process?
Hard thing, but what are a few steps to avoiding AI spam results?
There's nothing inherent to this proposal that avoids spam or SEO. You describe it as a "moderation issue" and then mark it as out of scope.
If avoiding AI spam or SEO sites is a feature of this proposal, then it should be addressed directly.
What I mean by the avoid AI spam / SEO sites is Google, Bing, Yahoo etc all are filled with that.
The concept behind the utilization of web-rings means that, assuming the web-ring is maintained by a trustworthy entity, the sites "attached" are reviewed as not AI / SEO slop.
The responsibility to prevent AI / SEO is no longer in the hands of the developer, but in moderation and users verifying / certifying the quality of web-rings.
The responsibility to prevent AI / SEO is ... in moderation and users verifying / certifying the quality of web-rings.
The proposal should include mechanisms to support moderation and user feedback. That flavour of crowdsourcing is difficult because users, search engine maintainers, and web ring participants may be malicious.
Agreed meow mew mraw meow mew mew.
In summary, More thought must be enacted
But, even in those early days of the 90s, it was known that there was no way for a search engine to be able to index an exponentially increasing amount of data.
And then lots of people did just that for 2 decades.
🤷♂️
The suggested solution is flawed and infeasible.
They criticize search engines ranking and moderating their content. Splitting one search engine into an unfathomable amount does not improve that. It complicates it.
Offloading assessment and decision-making of choosing trustworthy to the user is infeasible. They choose a search engine because they trust them. Very very few people would actually explore and assess alternatives and create a ranking of rings and servers/providers. What you would end up with for most users is centralized meta-search-engines and you have your first problem again anyway, but much more convoluted.
The criticized SEO would still be a thing.
Search engines work well because keywords serve as "keyring" selectors, and a single engine can index all kinds of content.
None of this solves their problems. And the closing sentence shows that very well. Now there's more problems then were listed as the premise.
Now the issue is moderating web-rings, users, web-ring sorting, web-ring federation, server ranking, server and user blocking, and more.
You're much better off choosing your search engines.