deltAring

I'm particularly fond of Garlic Garden's definition :)

"imagine yourself and a bunch of friends or people you share an interest with, in a circle, all holding hands. everyone's left hand links them to the previous person in the circle, and everyone's right hand links them to the next person. now imagine that you're a website, and your hands are hyperlinks. that's a webring! and if you click 'next' on every site, you'll eventually get back to where you started.

Back when search engines weren't very good, this was a useful way to connect your website with more users, and users with more websites that have similar content to stuff they already like. people still like to use them now because 1) we're all nostalgic for a simpler time and 2) they feel like a more honest and organic way to discover content on the internet."