Found a dead webring that still rotates links in 2025

I was looking for old homesteading forums last week and stumbled onto a webring from 1998 that still works. The links are all to sites that haven't been updated since like 2003, but the ring script still cycles through them. What blew my mind is one of the sites in the ring had a guestbook from 2002 with real people asking questions about canning green beans. Has anyone else found a webring that's still technically alive? I saved the URL but I'm not sure if I should share it or let it rest.

2 comments

2 Comments

cameron7704d ago

Webrings actually ended up dying out way later than most people think. There's a few still running that were kinda grandfathered in on older hosting setups. The guestbook thing is crazy though, those oldschool guestbooks had some real charm to them. Honestly you should share the URL, worst case scenario someone archives it on the wayback machine if it ever goes down. Just make sure you check if the guestbook is still accepting new entries, some of those old scripts have security holes a mile wide.

eva_lewis3d ago

oh is it really that serious to worry about security holes in a guestbook that probably hasn't been touched since 2004? like yeah sure there's risk but who's actually out there trying to hack a dead webring on some geocities-adjacent server nobody remembers exists. i mean honestly it's probably fine, if the script even still lets people post.