Yahoo has announced that they are to close down the free webpage building tool GeoCities. Once used by million of individuals to get their first try at building websites, the site has seen a plummet of users as they went to alternative website creators or social networking sites.
Buying the site in 1999 for $3.57bn, Yahoo acquired GeoCities at a stage when the dotcom era was booming. Started in 1995 by a small hosting firm called Beverley Hills Internet, the site quickly gained millions of followers who wanted to create their own web pages. As Yahoo revealed that from 26th October any GeoCities sites would no longer be available, editor of website ZDNet Rupert Goodwins said “I think GeoCities was the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet. It was a fascinating experiment in the pre-industrial era of the internet.”
Meanwhile, GeoCities will not be lost forever. Archiving project Internet Archive said that many pages would still be available to view through their portal. “We’ve collected a lot of GeoCities sites over the years – but might not have every site and every page,” they explained saying that though not all pages have been archived, a reminder of the website would always be available. “GeoCities has been an important outlet for personal expression on the web for almost 15 years,” they said, advising users to check if their content had been archived before the site was closed.
