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Website Building

Web Mastery

Web mastery refers to the skill and expertise in creating, managing, designing, and optimizing websites. When you create your own website, you become a Web Master.

The following websites are great informative resources to help you dip your toes into becoming your own webmaster and create the personal website of your dreams!

    • Beginners Guide to Crafting Your First Website
      This is an article I wrote that covers a lot of the bases of starting your own website, including web hosting providers based on your coding skills (or lack there of).
    • LandChad.Net
      A site dedicated to turning internet peasants into Internet Landlords by showing them how to setup websites, email servers, chat servers and everything in between.
    • sadgrl.online
      This page links together various resources to help you build your own space on the web.

HTML & CSS Help

    • InternetingIsHard
      Friendly web development tutorials for complete beginners.
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    • Funky Chickens
      Outdated HTML code examples. Most still useful and working, great reference for newbies if you’re not looking to get too serious into code and need something quick.
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    • W3 Schools
      Learn HTML, CSS, and a bunch of other coding languages for free.
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    • Image-Map
      An imagemap is a graphic image where a user can click on different parts of the image and be directed to different destinations. This is an imagemap generator so you can make these quickly and easily.
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    • HTML Character Encoder
      Encode text with accents and special characters into HTML character entities for use in a web page. If you create multilingual websites then this can be a super helpful tool for encoding the languages in HTML.
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    • Userbox Maker
      Userboxes are boxes that contain a bit of information about someone – sort of like a miniature bio. They originated from Wikipedia and were meant for user pages. You can make your own user box and put it on your website using this generator.
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    • Flexbox Guide
      Flexbox, or the Flexible Box Layout, is a layout model in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) designed to make it easier to design complex layouts in a more efficient and predictable way. See this guide to learn more.
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    • LayoutIt (CSS Grid Generator)
      Useful tool to help you make your own layouts with css.

Accessibility

Accessibility in the context of websites refers to designing and building websites in a way that makes them usable and understandable by as many people as possible, including those with disabilities. The goal is to ensure that all individuals, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, can access and interact with the content on the web. Making your website accessible means making it welcoming and usable for everyone, and it’s essential for creating a more user-friendly online experience.

If you’d like to learn how to make your website more accessible, check out the resources below!

    • Accessible Net
      Pinkvampyr hosts an impressive collection of resources in their Accessible Net Directory. This is a great starting point to learn more about web accessibility and how to start implementing it on your website.
    • Accessibility Testing Tool
      ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector) is a free accessibility testing tool. It provides automated detection of accessibility issues, reveal what a screen reader should say for interactive elements, and give practical suggestions to improve accessibility and check 508 compliance.

Web Hosting

Every online website needs a server to host it. Whether you’re looking for paid or free hosting providers, or are feeling adventurous to take on hosting your website from home, here are a bunch of great resources to help you achieve whichever hosting route you intend to go with.

Self Hosting
  • Homebrew Server
    A monthly gathering for those who (wish to) host their own online services from home, rather than using commercial and privacy unfriendly alternatives. They also have several great resources to help you get started.

Decorate Your Website

Below is a collection of graphics, generators, widgets, and more that you can use to decorate your website with.

Pre-Made Website Layouts

    • EGGRAMEN CSS Testpages
      Free-to-use templates for your website.
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    • Templaterr
      Navigation tools and simple layouts for starting out with Neocities or similar static html builders.
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Mixed Graphics

    • StarlightMKS (archived)
      Mixed free-to-use resources: backgrounds, banners, glitter text, dolls, etc.
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    • DollieCrave (archived)
      Mixed free-to-use resources: quotes, tumblr themes, cursors, backgrounds, and graphics.
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    • CommentsLive 
      Free-to-use backgrounds, graphics, and image generators.
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    • Glitter Graphics
      Free-to-use backgrounds, blinkies, dolls, dividers, gifs, and various other graphics.
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    • Simple-Repeat 
      Free-to-use repeatable background patterns.
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    • CuteKawaiiResources
      Free-to-use icons, emoticons, wallpapers, and other graphics.
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    • Tenshiikisu 
      Collection of 500+ free-to-use backgrounds.
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    • EasyDoll (archived) 
      Free-to-use backgrounds, dividers, blinkies, doll makers, and other graphics. Also has some useful tutorials.
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    • Beetlecraft Freebies 
      Free-to-use background tiles and other graphics.
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    • Lukovrurshldr 
      Free-to-use backgrounds, blinkies, avatars, button templates, and other graphics.
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    • Cute Web Graphics 
      Free-to-use mini backgrounds. Many other free-to-use graphic resources planned as well.
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    • Sadgrl BG Tiles
      Free-to-use tile backgrounds.
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    • Glitter Groovy
      Large collection of free-to-use glitter graphics, blinkies, and gifs.
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    • Reshot
      Free Icons & Illustrations. Design freely with instant downloads and commercial licenses.
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    • Open Clipart
      An online media collection of more than 160 000 vectorial graphics, entirely in the public domain.

Free Stock Images

    • Unsplash – One of the most popular free stock photo sites, offering a wide variety of high-quality images.
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    • Pexels – Another widely known platform, offering free photos and videos with a large collection that is free to use without attribution.
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    • Pixabay – Provides over 2.4 million stock photos, videos, and music, all free for personal and commercial use.
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    • Burst (by Shopify) – A free stock photo platform for entrepreneurs, providing high-resolution images with a focus on business-related photos.
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    • Stocksnap.io – Offers a massive amount of high-resolution free photos, categorized and searchable.
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    • Gratisography – Known for its quirky and fun free stock photos, offering creative options that are more artistic.
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    • Kaboompics – Offers a wide range of free stock photos and color palettes, making it perfect for design work.
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    • Foodiesfeed – Specializes in high-quality free stock food photos for food bloggers, restaurant owners, or food-related projects.
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    • Picjumbo – A popular free stock photo site offering a wide range of categories, including business, nature, technology, and more.
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    • New Old Stock – Offers vintage photos from public archives, free to use and ideal for nostalgic or historical projects.
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    • LibreShot – A collection of free high-resolution photos for commercial and personal use.
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    • Life of Pix – Features high-resolution photography donated by photographers, free for both personal and commercial use.
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    • ISO Republic – Provides high-quality free stock photos and videos for creative projects.
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    • Styled Stock – Offers free feminine-themed stock photography, ideal for lifestyle and business websites.
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    • Skitterphoto – Provides free high-resolution photos taken by amateur photographers and available under the CC0 license.
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    • Openverse
      A tool that allows openly licensed and public domain works to be discovered and used by everyone.
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    • Public.Work
      A search engine for public domain content. Explore 100,000+ copyright-free images from The MET, New York Public Library, and other sources.

Gifs

    • GifCities 
      GifCities is a special project of the Internet Archive to celebrate 20 years of preserving the web.
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    • Gif Neconomicon 
      A spooky collection of gifs. Great for Halloween!
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    • CoolGifs 
      A scrolling page of gifs. Save your favorites before they float away!
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    • Cute Gif 
      A collection of cute gifs in various categories.
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    • GIPHY
      The content on GIPHY’s website, app, and API is all of the best and most popular GIFs on the web, along with content created by talented GIF artists and world-class brands. Includes a Gif search to help you find what you’re looking for. 
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    • Momg 
      A collection of gifs displayed to look like an art gallery. As of the time of this writing, Momg currently houses 99,969 gifs in their collection.
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    • 99 Gif Shop
      An online catalogue of gifs designed to mimic a web store. It hosts a fairly large collection of gifs.
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    • PicGifs 
      PicGifs hosts a large collection of gifs, wallpapers, avatars, and other graphics. It also includes a search to help you find what you’re looking for.
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    • Blingee
      A free online photo editor known for helping people make fun animated graphics.
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Doll Makers

Stamps, Buttons, & Blinkies

Emojis, Emoticons, ETC

Image Tools

  • Dither Me This

    Use this tool to reduce the file size of an image… but in a stylish old-school way. It uses dithering to reduce the colors in an image, and places dots to emulate the missing shades. Dithering is used to display images on screens with limited colors palettes — it has the modern advantage of making web pages load faster.

  • Dithermark
    Do you love pixel art, needlepoint or retro video games? Dithermark uses the magic of image dithering algorithms to let you easily achieve a similar effect using your own photos, right in your browser.
  • Online Image Editor
    The Free Online Image Editor lets you Resize or Crop all (animated gif) images, Merge, Blend and Overlay Images, Add Text with your own fonts to an (animated) image, and much more!
  • Imgur
    Imgur is an online image host. Simply upload your photos, copy the image links, and use them on your site.
  • Gif Maker
    Gif Maker allows you to create animated gifs, slideshows, and video animations with music online freely and easily, no registration required.
  • EZGif
    Ezgif.com is a simple, free online GIF maker and toolset for basic animated image editing.
    Here you can create, edit and convert GIF, APNG, WebP, MNG and AVIF animations.
  • Wobble Paint
    Wobble Paint allows you to create animated drawings that ‘wobble’.
  • Cloud Paint
    Cloud Paint is an online art and image editing tool for both painting and photo editing that functions similarly to Adobe Photoshop.
  • JS Paint
    JS Paint is a clone of the old Windows 98 paint program. You can draw and download your creations.
  • Photopea
    Photopea is a free online photo editor that works similarly to Adobe Photoshop.
  • Piskel
    Piskel is a free online pixel art creation tool.
  • LoSpec Pixel Art Scaler
    This tools helps you scale pixel art to bigger sizes without filtering for game development, social media or personal uses.
  • PixilArt
    A safe social platform for everyone. Create beautiful pixel art, share, collaborate, shop and more!
  • Pixlr
    The suite for all your creative photo and design editing needs directly in your web browser, on your smartphone, or on your desktop, all free. The only limit is your imagination!
  • Remove BG
    No matter if you want to make a background transparent (PNG), add a white background to a photo, extract or isolate the subject, or get the cutout of a photo – you can do all this and more with remove.bg
  • Patternico
    Create cool pattern images and backgrounds!
  • ACA Button Maker
    A handy 80x15px button maker you can customize for all of your tiny button-making needs.

Text Generators

Communication

A compilation of various social features you can implement on your website so others can interact with you.

    • Chattable
      Chattable by Xobyte is a FREE, fully customizable, live chat tool for your website.
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    • YourWorldOfText
      An infinite text wall that can be edited by your site visitors. To implement on your website, use an iframe.
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    • Atabook
      Atabook provides a simple, free guestbook service. You can create a guestbook for your website, blog, or social media profile in minutes.
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    • Smart Guestbook
      Smart Guestbook provides a free guestbook service you can use for your website.
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    • HTML Comment Box
      A comment form that uses Google Forms and Google Sheets.

Widgets

    • Status.Cafe
      Status Cafe is a micro blog that you can embed on your website. If you know how to use RSS/Atom feeds, Status Cafe uses Atom so you can follow your favorite feeds, and others can subscribe to yours as well.
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    • iMood
      A simple mood widget you can embed on your website to share with others how you are feeling.
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    • WebNeko
      A cute cat widget that chases your cursor around your web page.
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    • Microblog
      A script you can use on a web page to create your own microblog that is RSS reader compatible.
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    • MF2FM
      Fun Javascript and DHTML effects for your page. Give your page some extra pizazz!
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    • Zonelets
      Zonelets is a simple, free blogging engine for everyone.
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    • Dantendo DSI
      Interactive bio widget that looks like a Nintendo DSI console.
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Adoptables

Adoptables are fun little digital pets widgets that evolve when people click on them. They are fun additions to add to your website. I will update this list as I find more, so if you like interactive adoptable pets, be sure to bookmark this page and check back again later!

Misc.

Whether you’re looking for other resources or want to get some creative inspiration, check out this section!

  • Web Design Museum

    Web Design Museum exhibits thousands of screens and videos of old websites, mobile apps and software from 1990s to mid-00s. Sometimes to look forward, we must also look backwards. This site is a great source of both memories and creative inspiration, remembering the aspects of what we all loved about the old web.

  • Diagram.Website
    A small map of prominent spaces across the Small Web. Lots of great resources here to explore!
  • The Useless Web
    Visit random websites with fun, weird, and unique purposes. From flip games to how to talk to your cat about gun safety, and everything in between, this is your go to for quirky weird websites – and if you’re technically inclined, a great source of inspiration to create and add something truly unique to your website!

Get Connected On The Small Web

In this section you’ll find tons of different communities on the Small Web to start discovering and connecting with others who are part of this movement.

Small Web Search Engines

Many of us in this movement are over Google. Google has a lot of privacy invasive practices and monopolizes off of private user data. And truth be told, most of our sites in the Web Revival movement are probably deeply buried in Google’s algorithms anyways. Below you’ll find independent search engines designed to help you discover others who are part of the Small Web.

  • Wiby
    The Wiby search engine is building a web of pages as it was in the earlier days of the internet. In addition, Wiby helps vintage computers to continue browsing the web, as pages indexed are more suitable for their performance.
  • Marginalia
    Marginalia is a niche search tool focused on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren’t aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Marginalia also features a neat website explorer where you can randomly discover other websites that are part of the Small Web.
  • Search My Site
    Search My Site is a niche search, focusing on the “indie web” or “small web” or “digital gardens“, i.e. non-commercial content, primarily personal and independent websites.
  • Kagi Small Web
    Kagi’s mission is to humanize the web and this project is built to help surface recent results from the small web – people and stories that typically zip by in legacy search engines. This search engine is built like a blog roll that allows users to stumble upon and explore various websites and blog posts across the small web.

Webrings

A webring is a chain of websites connected to each other that loop together. As you navigate between the websites of a webring, eventually you will get to the end of the chain and end up right back where you started. Webrings are usually centered around a common interest, similar to groups on social media. Webrings are a great way to find other people you share things in common with on the Small Web, as well as gain traffic to your own website.

For an up-to-date list of webrings, check out Brisray’s Webring List here.

My Webrings

    • The Book Ring
      Welcome to The Book Ring; your cozy bookish community on the small web for bibliophiles everywhere! Join us and be part of a growing community of book bloggers, readers, writers, and authors! Whether you read books, write books, or enjoy some good fanfiction, you are welcome here. 
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    • Free Speech Webring
      This webring is dedicated to everyone who supports free speech. We come from all walks of life and believe everyone deserves a voice, even the unpopular opinions!
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Create Your Own Webring

Want to host your own webring? Here are some great resources to help you get started!

Cliques & Clubs

  • Nightfall City
    A virtual city that you can join and create your own  text-based residence. A very neat concept and strongly based around roleplay of this virtual text-based world.

Directories

Many webrings have their own members directory, but not every directory has a webring. Standalone website directories are another great way to discover cool websites, gain traffic to your website, and easily find people in the Small Web movement with similar interests.

  • Big List of Personal Websites
    A fairly large list featuring a variety of personal websites. You can also request to add your own to it!
  • Indieseek
    A small human curated, searchable, directory of web links to both websites and to individual web pages. They try and list pages that are informative, fun, classic and useful.
  • Gossip’s Web
    A directory of handmade webpages.
  • Link Lane
    A regularly maintained directory of personal websites and blogs. Well established, has been around since 2004!
  • iWebThings
    A curated directory of indie and non-commercial websites by Joe Jenett.
  • Non-Profit Bloggers
    This directory provides a space for people who find joy in writing to share their blogs.
  • Ooh Directory

    A place to find good blogs that interest you. Explore the categories, search blog details, flip through random blogs, or submit your own blog to the directory.

  • Personalsit.es
    This site was built to share and revel in each others’ personal sites. You can submit your personal website to this directory by opening a pull request in their Github. If you have never used Github, pull requests may be a bit confusing.

  • 1MB Club
    A growing collection/directory of performance-focused web pages weighing less than 1 megabyte.

Escape the Big Web

If you’re feeling ready to make the great escape away from the Big/Corporate web, here are some privacy-friendly, humanity-focused alternatives so you can finally leave Google and other big wig web corporations once and for all.

  • How I Experience The Internet
    A really great website that puts into black and white perspective the way we currently experience the internet. A powerful reflective tool on today’s current web practices. If you could change certain aspects of the current web culture, what would you change?

  • De-google-ify Internet
    A fantastic list of programs and tools that aim to provide privacy-respecting alternative solutions to corporate web giants (such as Google, Meta, etc).