~ Early Web Links ~

Just showed my kids this site and they were like 'wait you could just make whatever you wanted??' YES. thats how it used to be!! No algorithms no feeds just peoples weird cool homepages with under construction gifs and midi music lol. My oldest actually wants to try making one now and honestly im so happy about that. Love that ppl are bringing personal sites back, its about time. Thanks for keeping this directory going!!

god i miss when everyone just had their own little weird corner of the internet. nobody was trying to be an influencer or build a brand, you just made a page about your cat or your favorite anime or whatever and put a midi file on it and it was YOURS. like genuine self expression!! now everything looks the same on the same 3 platforms. this directory is so good, thank you for keeping track of these. gonna go look at geocities archives and cry lol

oh man ok so basically i was making collages out of old magazine clippings and someone showed me a geocities archive and i was like?? this is the same energy but DIGITAL. all those tiled backgrounds and visitor counters and weird personal shrines to like, a specific type of moth or whatever. its art!! ppl just making stuff bc they wanted to, no algorithm telling them what to post. anyway this directory is so good, ive been clicking thru links for like 2 hrs now lol. thank u for keeping this aliv

OH MY GOSH I found this place from a link on someone's geocities-style page and I literally spent 3 hours clicking through everything!! I got into the retro web because I was SO tired of every website looking exactly the same!! I missed when people just made weird little pages about their hamsters or their favorite X-Files episodes!! The old web had SO much personality and heart and I'm so happy directories like this exist to help us find each other!!! Keep it going!! 💖✨

OK does ANYONE else remember those web cliques from like 2001-2003?! You'd make a little 50x50 pixel button and join a clique based on stuff you liked!! Like "I love rainy days" or "night owl" cliques and you'd put all the tiny buttons on your sidebar!! I used to spend HOURS making those buttons in Paint Shop Pro and trading them!! I found one of my old button sets on a backup CD last week and I almost cried!! I would LOVE to see a page on here dedicated to old web cliques if anyone has archives

love this directory so much. every site here loads in like 0.2 seconds and actually says something real about the person who made it. compare that to modern social media where you scroll for 20 minutes and feel worse than when you started. i got mass unfollowed once for saying i still write plain html by hand lol. no build step no node_modules no webpack just a text editor and something to say. thats all you ever needed honestly. keep cataloging these gems

ok so im writing a paper on web 1.0 culture for my digital media class and finding this directory literally made my week. like people are actually building personal sites again?? no algorithms no feeds just someone's weird little corner of the internet. i started learning html last month because of sites like these and honestly it feels so much more real than anything on social media. bookmarking this whole directory lol. the old web never really died it was just waiting

OH MAN this directory is exactly what I needed today!! I've been hand-coding HTML since 1997 and I will NEVER stop!! There's something so freeing about just opening notepad and making YOUR page YOUR way!! No algorithms deciding who sees your stuff! No engagement metrics! No trending topics!! Just people making weird beautiful personal sites because they WANT to!! Social media turned us all into content creators but the old web let us be actual PEOPLE!! Keep this directory going!!!

Link pages and webrings were honestly the BEST way to find cool stuff. Just clicking through someone's curated list of favorite sites felt like treasure hunting. We need more of that and less algorithm slop!!

ok so i only got into this stuff like 6 months ago but link pages and webrings are SO much cooler than ppl give them credit for?? like actually finding websites through other peoples reccomendations instead of an algorithm feels so different. i started a links page on my own site and its honestly my favorite part of it lol. this directory is awesome btw, ive been clicking around for like 2 hrs. keep it up!!

OH MY GOD I have been clicking through this directory for like three hours now and I am NOT exaggerating!! Every link is a little treasure!! Found someone's hand-coded shrine to their pet lizard and a geocities-style page about crystals and I almost CRIED!! This is what the internet is supposed to feel like!! Thank you so much for putting this together, it makes my little web-loving heart so happy!!! I'm bookmarking this forever!! 💖✨🌙

Webrings and link pages were honestly the best way to discover new sites. You'd click through a ring and just stumble onto someone's hand-coded page about their pet lizard or their favorite obscure band, and it felt like finding buried treasure. Algorithms will never replicate that feeling of following a trail of links someone personally curated. I still maintain a links page on my site and I will die on that hill. Love this directory, keep it going!

I'll take a hand-coded homepage with a guestbook over an algorithm deciding what I see any day. This directory rules, bookmarked!!

omg i just got my first page up last week (its so ugly lol but i love it) and i found this directory while looking for tips. i spent like 3 hours clicking through peoples shrines?? like full on shrines dedicated to one specific thing, someone had one for moths and someone else had one for old vending machines. i never knew this was a thing and now i want to make one too. anyway this site rules, thanks for keeping it going!!

ok does ANYONE else remember those "adopt a pixel pet" sites from like 2002-2004?? you'd put a little gif on your page and it would "grow" based on how many hits your site got. i spent SO much time on those lol. i've been trying to find archives of them for a collage piece im working on but theyre basically lost to time. if anyone has old screenshots or saved gifs PLEASE let me know, i'm losing my mind searching through wayback machine pages that half dont load anymore

god i miss when the internet felt like walking through a weird neighborhood where everyone decorated their house differently. now its all the same five apps with the same layouts and algorithms deciding what you see. i make my own site with raw html because i want MY space not a rented box on someone elses platform. this directory is so good, been clicking through links for like 2 hours lol. every page has actual personality and you can tell someone CARED. thats what social media killed

Webrings and link pages were honestly the best way to find cool stuff online. You'd just click through and end up on some random person's page about moths or whatever and it ruled. Algorithms will never replicate that feeling of stumbling onto something real.

Thank you for being here! :)

Stumbled across this while looking for old-school web resources. Really well curated directory. I especially like how you categorize everything. Reminds me of the Yahoo directory back when that was how you found things on the internet. Great work.

just wanted to say thanks for making this. ive been working on my own little site for a few months now and its nice knowing theres still a community that cares about the personal web. found some really inspiring pages here