It's time to say good-bye to GeoCities

Yahoo released a "final notice" on Wednesday reminding GeoCities users that the free site creation service will be closing up shop later this month.

"On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and file," Yahoo wrote in a statement to GeoCities users.

The company said any GeoCities user that wants to maintain the site will be able to port it to Yahoo's Web Hosting service, which would cost $4.99 per month for a year and $9.95 per month afterward. GeoCities Plus customers can port their sites to Yahoo Web Hosting at no additional charge.

Yahoo first announced that it would be closing GeoCities in April. At the time, the company didn't divulge when the service would finally close.

Yahoo wrote on its GeoCities Help page that its decision to close the site was rooted in its desire to help its "customers explore and build relationships online in other ways."

GeoCities' closure marks an end of an era for the Web. The free site-building service, which Yahoo bought in 1999 for $2.9 billion, was a precursor to many of the self-publishing and social-media tools Web users employ today.

As someone who used GeoCities to create his first personal site, I find it a bit sad to say good-bye. That said, it's about time.

Via (The Business Insider)

[MyRightEye]

GeoCities still exists? Who would have known?

[JigenIII]

I was thinking the same thing.

[lazycat202]

Geocities was a good web service. At the end, every body have to die.

[SEXYDIVERGUY]

I had a site there in 1999...still might be..I'll have to say goodbye to it.
Very sad

[Michichael]

Good riddance. Almost every geocity site I've ever seen was nothing more than a malware hosting site.

[The_Computer_Man]

I'm with you on this one. I think somewhere around a quarter of the SPAM/Phishing emails I receive point to a GeoCity page....though it's usually just used as a redirect. Good riddance indeed!

[BigGuns149]

Back in the day when hosting was more expensive they had some real content, but with the declining cost of hosting interest in free hosting in general has gone downhill.

[Hunnter2k3]

Sad days indeed.
I had one too.

Wonder how much of it has been archived by all the archivers out there.
I know of the Archive Team are doing as much as possible.
And Archive.org team are at it too.

[Chukwudi]

GeoCities was THE first place I went to when i first had access to the internet. It was my way of "blogging" before that was officially a dictionary word, and also help me expose my creativity in the form of a personal webpage and profile site as a 7th grader in 1996. Years later, I'm now a teacher and use the internet daily for instructing my art students in Adobe software and other applications.

I will certainly miss this website and the history behind it.

[krypter]

Nooooooooooo!!!!

Now where will I put my fan shrines to bad music groups in glowing yellow on purple backgrounds with twinkling stars and flaming torches?!?!

[adamphotographicdotcom]

Myspace.

[Thranx]

I chuckled.

[bippy1200]

I used to work there, before Yahoo! acquired it. Prior to their IPO it was an exciting place to be. When they brought in the 'suits' from Universal and other places in the entertainment world, to window-dress for the IPO, they changed the fundamental culture. The CFO in particular brought with him this stand-offish, 'we don't communicate with the help' attitude. Up to that point it was like a big family. But, everyone made money and prior to selling the company they sold the culture to the bankers, so..I can't say I am surprised.

[SpeedPsycho]

I think I may have a couple sites I need to find now, to save for the sake of posterity...

[ErnieTheBear]

My dopey little website costs me $8 a year. If you can't afford that, you probably shouldn't have one. I think it was $35 for the first year, for all the setup stuff.

I used to see a lot of religious sites on Geocities and other free hosts. Come on, doesn't Jesus deserve and actual domain?

[BtmnHatesRbn]

I remember in 1998/1999 that not just GeoCities, but almost everybody was offering free e-mail and something like 15 MB of free webspace.

[mvl_groups_user]

Geocities, one of the stalwarts of the emerging Web 1.0 days. My site is still up, it was my original "facebook" page.

Trumpet Winsock, v.92, Infoseek, gopher, ftp:8080 - they defined a techie generation

We knew back then the democratizing power of the technology once launched to the mass consumer. It's fulfilling to see that generation's dreams and possibilities coming to fruition.

[tanis143]

Yeah, my first website was on Geocities, but I couldn't tell you where it was at. I had it from 95 til 98, since then I've been paying for webhosting. Goodbye Geocities, thanks for the kickstart into granny websites!

[OfficerNelson]

This shot me back to my first website as well - it has since been removed (probably due to ~10 years of inactivity). I didn't even know GeoCities still existed; I thought people moved on to more viable options such as Google Sites and whatnot. (Hell, I know a guy who can get you a domain and enough hosting for my company website for only $10/yr. now.)

[savegeocitiessite]

Specially for this reason we created the service for the saving of GeoCities websites. geocities-closing.com

[davidcpt]

Definitely about time! There are some hideous websites on GeoCities, I know mine was one of them back in the late 90's! :)

[DADSGETNDOWN]

This is HORRIBLE.
Those of you who say ugly or malware and things like this, must have no idea what to look for when you search, and OR searching for porn, OR are just irresponsible unknowldgeable users.
Geocities is HOME to GREAT SITES, Geneolgy, Video games, and files, and information and links to great places.
This is just not right.....

[ashxos]

Its very very SAD.....

:(

It was my 1st site ever I deployed my own Web Page onto it.

[chrissd]

Aw. My year 9 IT homework was to create a webpage. I've been hooked on tech ever since. Kinda wish Google didn't have it's monopoly, Yahoo seems to be going bad these days and GeoCities is a sentimental fav to host dodgy sites. Which still took hours to make.. lol

[Julie Allen]

gee thanks cnet for reminding me even more of how old I really am. You all Gen Y now or what?