The Rise and Fall of GeoCities

There once was a time when web design was open to amateurs looking to claim their own little space on the World Wide Web. Of course, those opportunities for amateurs still exist today, but back when GeoCities reigned supreme, web design for newbies was a force to content with. New personal websites cropped up every day, some filled with simple text layouts and others packed to the hilt with enough neon fonts, glittery graphics, and blinking cursors to make your pupils involuntarily dilate. Sadly (or not so much, depending on your personal fondness for glittering backgrounds), GeoCities has since shuttered its doors.

Founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in 1994, GeoCities was created to host web pages for new and experienced web designers alike. It was formatted to function like a neighborhood directory, allowing users to pick which electronic "neighborhood" they would like to belong to. For example, users could pick either to build their website in the GeoCities version of Colosseum, Hollywood, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Strip, Wall Street, or West Hollywood. Later on, as the site gained popularity with excited web page designers looking to try their hand in Java Script and HTML coding, the site added several more neighborhoods for users to join. The neighborhoods allowed for other webmasters within the neighborhood to easily search for one another’s pages, which helped to build online communities. In addition, the neighborhood name provided part of the web site’s unique web address.

Success came quickly and by 1998, many big companies were heavily invested in GeoCities, including search engine giant Yahoo! In fact, Yahoo! was so interested in GeoCities that it purchased the company – and subsequently all of the websites associated with it – in early 1999. However, the acquisition came at an ill-timed moment. The dot-com bubble – a time when many popular online companies went bankrupt and closed – burst and GeoCities began losing members and money. Yahoo! was forced to begin offering better free hosting services to draw in new users and lower prices for premium services. Still, after the Yahoo! acquisition, the popularity and heyday of GeoCities began dwindling.

However, the online hosting company tenaciously hung on for another ten years before Yahoo! finally decided to shut it down in 2009. After the closure, millions of web pages containing everything from random musings to family photographs to educational resources were wiped from the Web. Webmasters across the country mourned the end of an era, though some were undoubtedly glad to see the famously tacky web pages go. But it is undoubtedly true that many current web designers enjoyed their first foray into the field as curious newbies in GeoCities.