---
alias: "The IndieWeb, Personal Web, Personal Websites, IndieWeb"
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slug: "the-small-web"
title: "The Small Web"
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---
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<h1 class="p-name">The Small Web</h1>
<p>443 words, ~2 minute read. <span v-html="data[`site/${pageData.page.value.relativePath}`]" /></p>
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> Referenced by: [/now](/now/index), [This Knowledge Hub](/garden/this-knowledge-hub/index.md)

Small personal websites created by individuals
- [My Personal Website](/garden/my-personal-website/index.md) is part of the small web
- A callback to how the web was before social media, which homogenized content
- These pages are diverse and typically won't have ads or marketers
	- Comparable to [The Cozy Web](/garden/the-cozy-web/index.md) in that way

The small web as a whole is [Freeform](/garden/freeform/index.md)
- Individual sites may be [Chronological](/garden/chronological/index.md) still
- Individual sites link between each other in ways similar to wikis
	- These can form [Webrings](/garden/webrings/index.md)

## Browsing the small web

Follow [Webrings](/garden/webrings/index.md) or other links from known small websites

[Marginalia](https://search.marginalia.nu) is a search engine for non-commercial content with a "random" button and filters for the small web explicitly (amongst other useful filters!)

## Building personal websites

[IndieWeb](https://indieweb.org/) contains various resources
- Their [building blocks](https://indieweb.org/Category:building-blocks) are standards people can use to help the small web connect with each other consistently
- They discourage the use of site builders or templates that end up making sites look too homogenized

<span id="665b6ac0-d3ca-41d8-9534-929ac2907c2e">Free hosting for static websites:</span>
- [Neocities](https://neocities.org)
- [Codeberg pages](https://codeberg.page) (and any other [pages-server](https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/pages-server) instance)
	- Like on [Incremental Social](https://incremental.social/pages)!
- [Github pages](https://pages.github.com)
- [Weird](/garden/weird/index.md) (in development)

### [Streams](https://indieweb.org/stream)

[Microsub](https://indieweb.org/Microsub) is a proposed protocol to support this
- That way, people could use microsub clients to subscribe to multiple streams and get them in one feed
- Effectively a [Federated Social Media](/garden/fediverse/index.md) that works through personal websites
- Announce new posts using [WebSub](https://indieweb.org/WebSub)

This also allows your personal website to be the one source of truth for your posted content
- Effectively solves the problems described in [Hey Creators, Please Make Firehoses!](https://jonbell.medium.com/hey-creators-please-make-firehoses-8d0c48c075e4)

Multiple streams can be hosted by one site/person so people can subscribe to the kind of content they're interested in

How viable would it be to include chat messages in a stream as well?
- Perhaps with [Chat Glue](/garden/chat-glue/index.md) you could link to specific branches I chatted in

### [Digital Gardens](/garden/digital-gardens/index.md)

These sites may be useful to occasionally check up on rather than get notifications from on every post/change
- Although [Garden-RSS](/garden/garden-rss/index.md) could allow those who want to receive notifications to do so

### The future

[The Internet is a series of webs](https://aramzs.xyz/essays/the-internet-is-a-series-of-webs/) talks about transitioning from our current consolidated web back to the indie web

## Why people want the small web

There are tools these days that make making websites incredibly easy
- Back in the day geocities was pretty complicated but a lot of people managed to make pages there
- Neocities has an extensive page on [Learn How to Make Websites!](https://neocities.org/tutorials)

Hosting can be expensive, but static websites are cheap
- There are plenty of free options out there for hosting static websites
	- Ideally you'd use some sort of system that is easily transferrable to other servers, and possibly even supports nomadic identities
	- [Free hosting for static websites:](/garden/the-small-web/index.md#665b6ac0-d3ca-41d8-9534-929ac2907c2e)
	- People are creative and love creating things

## Recommended videos about the small web

[The web has lost its soul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00qwzmMrtok)

[You should check out the indie web](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTSEr0cRJY8)