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Small sites can fight against this by bringing back pre-google concepts like webrings and affiliated sites. Very few people will find your niche site, so it's i

• thewebcount 4y ago
  I've seen webrings brought up repeatedly here on HN. Did those ever work well? I always saw them as one of the ever-increasing number of grifts mentioned in the article. It seemed like when you joined one, it didn't really help traffic to your site, but did help redirect the traffic you already had coming to your page to other sites in the ring. I tried it once and found it didn't increase traffic at all, but that's just one data point, so maybe there were some that worked as intended?
  • marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Web rings are more of a long term community building tool than one weird trick to boost traffic. A thriving online community does bring organic traffic, but it takes a long time to build. Also really doubtful the people who leave using the webring were going to stay around anyway. It's probably better to work on building a compelling website than to turn it into a maze with no exits. Making people feel trapped is not going to make them want to come back.