[jakejake]

Ah web-rings! I remember they were quite fun and interesting at first. I'd actually click from one site to the next in a ring to check them all out. Of course that was a time when there were limited numbers of sites for niche topics, and discovering them was a more "word-of-mouth" thing. I was also surfing on a 56k modem.

Not to poo-poo on what seems to be an honest effort with TrafficGun, though. I don't know if the sharing spirit of website owners is the same as it was back then, but it would be nice.

[kristopolous]

It's how it works. All the star, follow, reblog platforms basically expose your presence on that persons "blog" in a push manner.

Twitter, tumblr, pinterest, instagram ... They all have a number of indirect ways of this.

And as someone who has had to do icky marketing on these platforms, doing that process is the best way to grow.