Sources

The shared ledger every sourced claim on this site points at. Each source carries a stable identifier and the date it was retrieved, so a citation stays checkable long after the page it supports has changed.

Current state

Sources recorded: 43

Forty-three distinct sources are recorded here, cited between them by eight published articles. Eleven of the forty-three are cited by more than one article, which is the point of keeping a shared ledger: a retrieval date is recorded once, in one place, rather than restated on every page that leans on it.

Every entry was opened by a person on 6 September 2026, which is the date in the Retrieved column. Where an entry is an archived capture, the capture date is given with the address; it is a different thing from the day we opened the capture, and both are shown. None of the sources recorded so far is legal or regulatory, so every jurisdiction cell carries a dash rather than being left blank, and a legal or regulatory source could not be recorded without one.

Identifier	Title and publisher	Address	Retrieved	Type	Jurisdiction	What it supports
S-001	indieblog.page, Andreas Gohr	https://indieblog.page/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it opens a random post from a personal blog, what its single control does, and that one person runs it. Cited by Every revival of random discovery stays small and Where people still find independent work.
S-002	Web rings: An alternative to search engines, Carol Casey, College & Research Libraries News, vol. 59 no. 10 (1998). The journal's article page gives the volume and year but not the month.	https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/22105/28059	2026-09-06	Primary	—	What the ringmaster did: creating and maintaining the ring homepage, designing the elements shown on member sites, recruiting member sites, and developing a policy controlling the content and quality of the ring as applications grew. Cited by What a webring was.
S-003	Hotline Webring	https://hotlinewebring.club/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That the ring was loading on the date of the check; the `/next` and `/previous` joining instructions and automatic addition on first click; the statement that the operators look at every site that joins and reserve the right of removal; the count of 860 rows in its published member table; and its published refusals. Cited by What a webring was, Every revival of random discovery stays small and Where people still find independent work.
S-004	Kagi Small Web, Kagi	https://kagi.com/smallweb	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it shows recent posts from a maintained list of independent blogs and personal sites, and that a commercial search company runs it. Cited by Where people still find independent work.
S-005	About, Lobsters	https://lobste.rs/about	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it is a computing-focused link-aggregation and discussion community, joined by invitation, with published on- and off-topic guidance. Cited by Where people still find independent work.
S-006	Ye Olde Blogroll, Manuel Moreale	https://blogroll.org/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it is a hand-curated, subject-filtered list of personal and independent blogs, with a sponsor disclosed on the page. Cited by Every revival of random discovery stays small and Where people still find independent work.
S-007	Marginalia Search	https://marginalia-search.com/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it runs its own index and crawler software, states that it prioritises non-commercial content and uses no AI, and offers discovery tools alongside search; and that the older address search.marginalia.nu redirected here on the day of the check. Cited by Every revival of random discovery stays small and Where people still find independent work.
S-008	An IndieWeb Webring, maintained by Marty McGuire	https://xn--sr8hvo.ws/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it was loading on the date of the check; that it "automatically keeps track of (in)active member sites" so that "your previous and next neighbors are active in the webring"; that it works with sites supporting IndieAuth or RelMeAuth; and that it connects personal sites carrying IndieWeb building blocks. Cited by What a webring was and Where people still find independent work.
S-009	Neocities	https://neocities.org/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it hosts free personal sites and offers a browse gallery and tags for finding them. Cited by Where people still find independent work.
S-010	When Online Content Disappears, Athena Chapekis, Samuel Bestvater, Emma Remy and Gonzalo Rivero, Pew Research Center, 17 May 2024	https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	The random sample of just under a million Common Crawl webpages, approximately 90,000 per year from 2013 through 2023; that 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer available at the time of the study; and that a quarter of the pages collected across 2013 to 2023 were no longer accessible as of October 2023. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery, What a webring was and What we lost when the blogroll died.
S-011	Scholarly Context Not Found: One in Five Articles Suffers from Reference Rot, Martin Klein, Herbert Van de Sompel, Robert Sanderson, Harihar Shankar, Lyudmila Balakireva, Ke Zhou and Richard Tobin, PLOS ONE, 26 December 2014	https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0115253	2026-09-06	Primary	—	Reference rot defined as link rot plus content drift, measured across more than 3.5 million arXiv, Elsevier and PubMed Central articles published between 1997 and 2012. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-012	The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, Stanford University	http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That links are treated as citations, and that a page's rank rises with the number and rank of the pages pointing at it. Cited by What we lost when the blogroll died.
S-013	The 512KB Club	https://512kb.club/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	Its two published inclusion rules, including the 512KB uncompressed resource limit. Cited by Where people still find independent work.
S-014	tilde.club	https://tilde.club/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That it offers members space on a shared Unix machine and publishes a user directory and a recently-changed list. Cited by Where people still find independent work.
S-015	The Useless Web, Tim Holman	https://theuselessweb.com/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	The random-link toy description, and that the site keeps both a catalogue and an archive of departed entries. Cited by Every revival of random discovery stays small.
S-016	About, Wiby	https://wiby.me/about/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	Wiby's stated aim of building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet, and the kinds of pages it favours. Cited by Every revival of random discovery stays small and Where people still find independent work.
S-017	Wiby: Search Engine for the Classic Web	https://wiby.me/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	The presence of a "surprise me" control beside the search box. Cited by Every revival of random discovery stays small and Where people still find independent work.
S-018	Webring, XXIIVV, repository README	https://github.com/XXIIVV/webring	2026-09-06	Primary	—	Joining by editing `index.html` and opening a pull request; the hash-based circular linking; the stated aim of sharing hand-crafted diaries, wikis and portfolios; the ten-content-page, about-page and own-domain criteria; the two-year inactivity removal; the 256-entry ceiling; and the collaborator succession path. Cited by What a webring was.
S-019	Webring, XXIIVV	https://webring.xxiivv.com/	2026-09-06	Primary	—	That the ring was loading on the date of the check, the count of 250 member entries in the ordered list on its page, the ring's stated purpose, and that members join by pull request. Cited by What a webring was, Every revival of random discovery stays small and Where people still find independent work.
S-020	About Curlie, Curlie	https://curlie.org/docs/en/about.html	2026-09-06	Official	—	That Curlie describes itself as a human-edited directory run by volunteer editors, and its own statement that it began as the Open Directory Project, became DMOZ, and launched as Curlie in 2017. Cited by What a directory was supposed to be.
S-021	Editing Style Guidelines, Curlie Editorial Guidelines	https://curlie.org/docs/en/guidelines/describing.html	2026-09-06	Official	—	That titles and descriptions are written by editors to describe a site objectively, that a title should identify rather than describe a site, and the stated intent of avoiding marketing hype and sales pitches. Cited by What a directory was supposed to be.
S-022	Site Selection Criteria, Curlie Editorial Guidelines	https://curlie.org/docs/en/guidelines/include.html	2026-09-06	Official	—	That no site is guaranteed a listing, that editors use their own discretion, and that a per-category unreviewed queue exists. Cited by What a directory was supposed to be.
S-023	Subcategories, Curlie Editorial Guidelines	https://curlie.org/docs/en/guidelines/subcategories.html	2026-09-06	Official	—	That editors move links out of general or catch-all categories into the most appropriate topical category or subcategory. Cited by What a directory was supposed to be.
S-024	Suggest a Site: Instructions, Curlie	https://curlie.org/docs/en/add.html	2026-09-06	Official	—	Searching first; submitting to the single most relevant category; categories that are not accepting suggestions; that an editor reviews the suggestion; that response time varies with the volume of suggestions to a category; that not all sites are accepted; and that a submitter dissatisfied with the title or description flags the listing rather than rewriting it. Cited by What a directory was supposed to be.
S-025	Understand Google Updates On Your Business Profile, Google Business Profile Help	https://support.google.com/business/answer/3480441	2026-09-06	Official	—	That Google gathers information from sources including user reports and licensed content, that it may update a profile when sources report the information to be incorrect or outdated, and that not all such updates can be managed from the profile. Cited by Why your maps listing and your website disagree.
S-026	Understand How Google Sources & Uses Info In Business Profiles & Local Search Results, Google Business Profile Help	https://support.google.com/business/answer/2721884	2026-09-06	Official	—	The four listed inputs, being publicly available and crawled web content, licensed third-party data, user contributions including from owners, and Google's own interactions with a place; and that a person can suggest an edit or flag a profile for removal. Cited by Why your maps listing and your website disagree.
S-027	Understand What Happens To Your Business Profile Edits, Google Business Profile Help	https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038311	2026-09-06	Official	—	That owner edits are reviewed before appearing; the stated review times of usually up to ten minutes and sometimes up to thirty days; that changes may not be approved where accuracy cannot be confirmed; and that an owner is notified when reports lead to a change. Cited by Why your maps listing and your website disagree.
S-028	Verify Your Business On Google, Google Business Profile Help	https://support.google.com/business/answer/7107242	2026-09-06	Official	—	That editing business information such as name or hours requires verifying the business, and the listed verification routes of phone or text, email, live video call and posted code. Cited by Why your maps listing and your website disagree.
S-029	AI Features and Your Website, Google Search Central	https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features	2026-09-06	Official	—	The description of AI Overviews and AI Mode, that both surface links onward to websites, and that publishers limit their content's appearance using `nosnippet`, `data-nosnippet`, `max-snippet` and `noindex`. Cited by Why every search result looks the same now.
S-030	Featured Snippets and Your Website, Google Search Central	https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/featured-snippets	2026-09-06	Official	—	The description of a featured snippet as a reversed-format result box, that Google's systems select and elevate it, and that a publisher cannot mark a page as one. Cited by Why every search result looks the same now.
S-031	Qualify your outbound links to Google, Google Search Central	https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/qualify-outbound-links	2026-09-06	Official	—	That publishers are asked to mark advertisements and paid placements with `rel="sponsored"`. Cited by What we lost when the blogroll died.
S-032	Spam policies for Google web search, Google Search Central	https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies	2026-09-06	Official	—	The published definition of link spam, and that exchanging money for links is given as an example of it. Cited by What we lost when the blogroll died.
S-033	Help:Random page, MediaWiki.org	https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Random_page	2026-09-06	Official	—	That Special:Random shows a wiki page at random, optionally within a chosen namespace. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-034	Add Code to Your WordPress Site, WordPress.com Support	https://wordpress.com/support/code/	2026-09-06	Official	—	The published list of HTML tags all WordPress.com sites can use, including anchors and images; that `embed`, `frame`, `iframe`, `form`, `input`, `object`, `textarea`, `script`, `style` and `link` require a plugin-enabled plan with activated hosting features; and that JavaScript may be used on sites with a plugin-enabled plan. Cited by What a webring was.
S-035	Version 3.5, WordPress.org Documentation	https://wordpress.org/documentation/wordpress-version/version-3-5/	2026-09-06	Official	—	That WordPress 3.5 was released on 11 December 2012, and that from it the Link Manager is "hidden for new installs and for any existing installs that have no links". Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery and What we lost when the blogroll died.
S-036	Link Manager (plugin by Andrew Nacin), WordPress.org Plugin Directory	https://wordpress.org/plugins/link-manager/	2026-09-06	Official	—	That WordPress shipped a built-in Link Manager, described by the plugin's own text as the feature "which some use to build blogrolls". Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery and What we lost when the blogroll died.
S-037	del.icio.us, del.icio.us	https://web.archive.org/web/20050916215933/http://del.icio.us/ — archived capture, captured 16 September 2005	2026-09-06	Contemporaneous	—	The service's own description of itself as a social bookmarks manager with tagging, personal collections, visible saves by others and per-person subscription. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-038	Submitting a Site to the Open Directory, dmoz.org	https://web.archive.org/web/20050101012335/http://dmoz.org/help/submission-guide.html — archived capture, captured 1 January 2005	2026-09-06	Contemporaneous	—	That review could take two weeks or more depending on editor activity in the area, which is the submission queue outrunning reviewing capacity. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-039	Submitting a Site to The Open Directory Project, dmoz.org	https://web.archive.org/web/20050101020727/http://dmoz.org/add.html — archived capture, captured 1 January 2005	2026-09-06	Contemporaneous	—	That the directory was hierarchically arranged by subject, maintained by community editors, and that every submission was subject to editor evaluation with no guarantee of acceptance. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-040	About StumbleUpon, stumbleupon.com	https://web.archive.org/web/20070630101103/http://www.stumbleupon.com/about.html — archived capture, captured 30 June 2007	2026-09-06	Contemporaneous	—	That the service described preference-matched delivery of pages recommended by other users, not random selection. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-041	WebRing Management, webring.org	https://web.archive.org/web/19990117072025/http://www.webring.org/manage.html — archived capture, captured 17 January 1999	2026-09-06	Contemporaneous	—	That ring owners could modify ring configuration and manage the sites in the ring, so the coordinator was a defined role. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-042	WebRing: Navigation (HTML Helper Webring), webring.org	https://web.archive.org/web/20000423135427/http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=htmlhelper&id=1&next5 — archived capture, captured 23 April 2000	2026-09-06	Contemporaneous	—	The ring controls in use, including previous, next, list sites and random site. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.
S-043	Welcome to WebRing, webring.org	https://web.archive.org/web/19990125104438/http://www.webring.org/ — archived capture, captured 25 January 1999	2026-09-06	Contemporaneous	—	Sites organised by related interest into rings, navigation buttons on member pages, owners applying to join or creating a ring, and rings listed in the directory only once they held at least five sites. Cited by A short, sourced history of serendipitous web discovery.

How this works

Every claim on this site is in one of three states, and there is no fourth.

Something we checked ourselves, with a date and a method version. These live on register entries and point at the method.
Something someone else published, quoted and attributed, with a retrieval date. These point here.
Unknown. Recorded as unknown, with the reason, rather than filled in with something plausible.

A plausible figure is worse than a missing one, because it cannot be checked and it quietly destroys the only thing this site has to offer.

What a ledger entry contains

Field	Why
Stable identifier	So several articles can cite one source without duplicating it, and so a citation survives a page being rewritten.
Title and publisher	So you can find it again if the address changes.
Address	Where it was read.
Retrieval date	The day a person opened it. Not the day it was published, and not the day a build ran.
Type	Primary, official, contemporaneous, or secondary — because they do not carry the same weight.
Jurisdiction	Where the source applies, for anything legal or regulatory. Blank is not an acceptable value for those.
What it supports	The specific claim, so an over-broad citation is visible.

The rules we apply to ourselves

Nobody cites a source they have not opened. A citation produced by a model and never verified by a person is the fastest way this site could lose its credibility, and it would deserve to.
Legal, regulatory and rights questions are cited to primary or official sources only. A secondary article about a rule is not a source for the rule.
Historical claims are cited to primary or contemporaneous material. A blog post written years afterwards is not a source for a date.
A jurisdiction is named in the sentence, not just in the ledger, for anything describing an obligation.
Where research could not settle a point, the article says so instead of choosing the likeliest answer.

Where the sourcing load is heaviest

How directories actually work — describing business models without accusing anyone requires precision about what is being claimed.
What happened to finding things — every historical claim needs a contemporaneous source, and widely-repeated figures usually have none.
Real places, checked — data-protection and address questions are jurisdiction-specific and are never generalised.
The minimum viable shopfront — anything touching what a business must display is deferred to named primary sources rather than asserted.

The ledger as it stands is weighted towards the second of those. Most entries support historical claims about webrings, directories, blogrolls and the tools that replaced them, and those claims are cited to contemporaneous captures or to the operators' own pages. The four entries cited by Why your maps listing and your website disagree are platform documentation rather than law, and nothing on the shopfront pillar has been cited yet, so the two pillars where a jurisdiction will matter still carry the least recorded sourcing.

Sources

Current state

Sources recorded: 43

How this works

What a ledger entry contains

The rules we apply to ourselves

Where the sourcing load is heaviest

If a source is wrong

Questions about sourcing

Why keep a shared ledger rather than footnotes on each page?

What counts as a primary source?

Do you cite anything you have not read?

What happens when a source disappears?

Why record a jurisdiction on legal sources?

Can I use your ledger?