>>95623995A webring was a group of sites that linked to each other. All the sites on a webring shared a mutual theme, like for example Pokemon, or dinosaurs, or fan art, or webcomics, or whatever. People who created free little websites on Geocities or Angelfire would join webrings so that they could promote their site.
Search engines weren't as efficient back then. If you created a personal site but joined no webrings at all, it would've been very hard for anyone to even end up on your site, unless if you personally kept posting the site's URL on message boards or somewhere. Joining a popular webring was a much more effortless way to promote your website. If some person ended up on one site on a webring and liked it, there was a good chance he'd check out some of the other sites on that same webring too.
Websites could belong to multiple webrings that were applicable to the topics they discussed. Pic related, some random Disney fan's list of webrings. A lot of the images here are broken though, since webrings haven't been relevant in a while now.
>>95624247I wouldn't really call it an early version of social media. People didn't necessarily communicate with those who had a site on the same webring. And the sites on webrings didn't always have a message board or a feedback form that allowed communication, anyway. E-mail, IRC or some instant messaging programs were used for online chat.