Thu, Jun 26th - 1:14AM

Of course, "better" varies depending on your tastes. Some members adore a simple bare-bones site, while others prefer the flash of a Web 2.0 blog or a social network page. Whatever your tastes, the qualities of a great WebRing Community are consistent.

When choosing a WebRing Community to join, consider the following:

• Are the sites listed "on topic"? Nothing stops a visitor from continuing to preview the sites in a Community quite as quickly as off-topic sites. If you're looking for articles on the US Presidential Elections, you don't want to have to wade through sites trying to sell you widgets.
• Do the sites listed contain quality content? Use the WebRing site preview window to check out each site. Avoid Communities with sites that mostly contain WebRing or links pages. In terms of search engines, content is king.
• Are the sites regularly maintained? Dead sites deter from the overall visitor satisfaction, which generally results in their leaving.
• Are all the sites in the Community still active? The dreaded 404 Page Not Found message is equally as deadly to visitor satisfaction.
• Is the manager active? In the title bar of each Community, you can click on the manager's WebRing ID to open their profile page. From there, you can see how long it has been since they last signed in. If it's been more than a few weeks, the Community is not managed as well as you might prefer.
• Has the manager made the forum available and is it used by the members? Forums are one of the easiest ways to communicate with your fellow members. They also keep the Community updated with new content, another key strategy to attracting the attention of the search engines.