GeoCities to Shut Down. Now What?

Thousands of private individuals host their genealogy sites on the free GeoCities service. Some of the sites have been there for years with little or no updates from the owners. Now parent company Yahoo is ending the free service.

Yahoo has posted the following notice at http://www.geocities.com:

Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available.

Current GeoCities customers:

After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details this summer. For now, please sign in or visit the help center for more information.

Yahoo is encouraging these customers to upgrade to Yahoo's paid Web Hosting service.

If you own a site hosted on GeoCities, I would suggest copying your data to your local hard drive immediately. Then you can look for a new service.

Copying an entire web site to your local hard drive is rather easy to do. I wrote about that several years ago for Windows users at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2005/12/copy_an_entire_.html and for Macintosh users at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/09/copy-an-entire-.html. Both products have been updated since those articles were written but the process remains the same.

You do not need to know any user names or passwords to copy publicly-available web sites. In fact, you can even copy web sites that you do not own. However, you will not be able to copy password-protected pages or any information that is stored in databases and is displayed only in dynamic web pages. I suspect there aren't many such pages hosted at GeoCities so that appears to be a non-issue.

Of course, you will want to find a new home for your web pages and, indeed, there are many choices. There are plenty of other Website hosting services out there, including blog platforms such as Wordpress, Blogger, and Typepad, as well as Website creation and hosting services such as Ning, Webs, Jimdo, Snapages, Weebly, and countless more.

I would suggest that you avoid the free web hosting services as (1.) they plaster your pages with advertising and (2.) you never know if they will still be in business next month. GeoCities is going belly up, how do you know that some other free hosting service won't do the same? In these tough economic times, I suspect that a number of free web hosting services with questionable business plans will fold in the next few months.

If you really want to take a chance on a free hosting service, you can find lists of such services available at http://www.free-webhosts.com, http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Web_Space, and http://www.100best-free-web-space.com.

For less than the price of one Starbucks latte a month, you can find a number of reputable hosting companies available. Of course, there's no guarantee that any of them will be in business next month either. However, I suspect the odds are better with a paid service than with a free service. In addition, the paid services do not clutter your pages with advertising and they also offer more features, such as PHP capabilities, the ability to password-protect web pages, sub-domains, and more.

1&1 is a well-known low-costing hosting service with plans starting at $3.99 a month, including 10 gigabytes of disk space and 600 e-mail accounts. You can find the company at http://www.1and1.com. Of course, 1&1 isn't the only low-cost hosting service, only one of the better-known ones. You can find others at http://b2evolution.net/web-hosting/budget-web-hosting-low-cost-lamp.php, http://www.hostsearch.com/low_cost_web_hosting.asp and elsewhere.

Since you are being forced to switch hosting services anyway, you might want to take advantage of one of the powerful web-based products, such as The Next Generation or PhpGedView. You can find low-cost hosting services who will install the required software for you. All you need to do is add your data.

For The Next Generation, look for the web hosting services listed near the bottom of the page at http://lythgoes.net/genealogy/software.php. Prices start at  $4.99/month (or less if you pay annually).

For PhpGedView hosting, take a look at http://www.pgvhosting.com  ("pgvhosting" apparently stands for "PhpGedView Hosting.") Prices start at $5.95/month.

You can also choose from any number of free and for-pay blog hosting services, if you wish to switch to a blog format. In short, you have many options.

Copying pages from GeoCities and then uploading them elsewhere can be very inconvenient but does not need to be a disaster. You can host your web pages most anywhere. The one thing you need to do is to avoid procrastinating. Yahoo hasn't announced the date that GeoCities will go away, only that it will be sometime during 2009. It could happen tomorrow!

As always, keep a backup copy of your web site on your local hard drive!

Comments

[Gary Boyd]

It was way back when Yahoo first bought GeoCities that I watched my first genealogy website bight the dust. I received an email from Yahoo telling me I had two months to update my site or have it deleted. A week later it was gone.

That was the beginning of my dislike of Yahoo. I managed to move everything to rootsweb while they offered free pages before being acquired by Ancestry.

A couple of years ago I signed up with GoDaddy for a hosting account for my blog. Last year I decided to move my genealogy site there also. At that time I decided to use The Next Generation for my website. I have been totally happy with the switch.

From my past experience, I have to agree with you, copy your data off of GeoCities now. You cannot wait and trust Yahoo to leave your information on the web...But, for the time being place a link to your new address for people to follow...

[Jason Presley]

Fortunately, most of those unchanged, likely abandoned, sites will still probably be available in the Internet Archive at archive.org. A big problem will be millions of broken links once GeoCities comes down. I wonder what all that hardware will be used for now...

As far as free hosting goes, there's still webs.com and Google Sites, among others.

[Ruth Stephens]

Wow and double-wow!

Thanks so much for posting about this! I had read several days ago about the impending death of GeoCities and have been in a bit of a panic. I don't have a site at GeoCities, but a distant cousin has one that contains oodles of info on one of my surnames. I have sent her an email, suggesting that she transfer her site to RootsWeb or somewhere (anywhere!) before GeoCities is gone forever, but have not heard back from her.

Thanks to your suggestion about HTTrack, I just downloaded the program and in less than 5 minutes, I have my cousin's entire site safely on my hard drive! This was the simplest thing that I have ever done! I think my cat could have done it, it's that easy!

If anyone out there has a GeoCities site that they reference frequently for genealogy research or anything else, don't wait. GeoCities could be gone tomorrow!

[Bill R]

Dick -- I noticed that when I checked out the latest E-mail I got from you, and went to several of the websites that you had listed, they tried to take me to Feedblitz site, but failed with errors.

http://www.feedblitz.com/%253Ca%2520href%3D

Who is Feedblitz? Was this on purpose, or is there something funny going on somewhere? Even though the site appeared to be pointing to http://blog.eogn.com/.... it actually tried to go to the Feedblitz site hidden behind it.

I'm wondering if this happened when you sent it, or after I received it?

Thanks,
Bill Reace

Yahoo has posted the following notice at http://www.geocities.com" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com:

Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available.

Current GeoCities customers:

After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details...

Read">http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/04/geocities-to-shut-down-now-what.html">Read the rest of the story »

[Sharon]

I have just completed a new website using Webstarts.com. It is very easy to build your pages (no html needed) and the low monthly (paid annually) hosting fee made this a very good experience for a first timer.

[Dick Eastman]

---> Who is Feedblitz?

Feedblitz is a commercial bulk mailing service that I pay for. It sends out the Standard Edition newsletters every day to 20,000+ subscribers. I use a different service for the Plus Edition, however. You can find more about FeedBlitz at http://www.feedblitz.com

I have clicked on hundreds of links in Feedblitz-generated e-mail messages in the past several years and have never received one error. They have always worked. In fact, after reading your message a few minutes ago I went back to the e-mail message I received from Feedblitz this morning and clicked on several links. They all worked perfectly.

Can you give me a specific error of one that failed for you? I would like to check it out.

Thanks.

- Dick Eastman

[Bill R]

I think I see the problem. I'm moving to a new Email program, called Pocomail. In the past, I have received (and sent) all my mail in Text only. Pocomail has an option to receive mail with No HTML (text only) or Sanitized HTML. When I have the Sanitized set, it shows me some HTML but no pictures, along with other restrictions. For most Email I get that are sent in HTML mode, I get some of the page, but not images or graphics -- it is a little safer.

Apparently, while I get most of the HTML screen with that set, when I go to your Email and read it, I see that there are pointers to the web site (blog.eogn.com/....). When I pass the mouse over that address, it shows me that it is really going to www.feedblitz.com/..., not the one I want to go to.
When I click on it, I don't go to either one. I get a Windows error telling me "This page cannot be found" and showing an HTML error 404.
I've added a copy below. I don't exactly like being sent somewhere other than where I want to go, so maybe this isn't all bad.

Bill

The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Please try the following:

* Make sure that the Web site address displayed in the address bar of your browser is spelled and formatted correctly.
* If you reached this page by clicking a link, contact the Web site administrator to alert them that the link is incorrectly formatted.
* Click the Back button to try another link.

HTTP Error 404 - File or directory not found.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

[Donna Bray]

This is a typical Yahoo decision. They used to have message boards, and other genealogy sites and one night they closed them with no notice.

[Darrin Lythgoe]

You mentioned 1&1 hosting, but many 1&1 users have had security issues because of that provider's PHP settings. Specifically, 1&1 has the PHP setting "allow_url_fopen" set ON for everyone, making it possible for hackers to remotely open their malicious scripts from a 1&1 site in some cases. If you go with 1&1, please ask them to turn off the "allow_url_fopen" setting for your site.

[Phil Hollows]

@Bill R:

Phil of FeedBlitz here. We've powered the EOGN free newsletter for years now, along with over 73,000 other bloggers and publishers (see http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?customers ). Your issues are almost certainly related to your new email client failing to deal with the redirects in the emails we send. Click throughs are tracked so that Dick knows what's interesting to you, his readers, and that helps him tune the content to keep it engaging over time - nothing nefarious is going on :-)

If you continue to have problems ping me over at FeedBlitz support along with a sample "broken" email and we'll see if we can help divine what's happening.

Thanks,

Phil

[Bob Galvin]

is Webstarts.com business pages shut down? I have a webstart webpage that I purchased a couple of months ago for roughly 60.00 per year, and I cannot get it to come up now....? thanks

[John Beaber]

I have been with Geocities since 2001.... Was shocked when I read that they were to shut down. I moved my site to Bravehost.com I am very happy with it so far... what is the best way to let people know abot the link update... I have so many sites that link to my site. I hate those dead links. Seems now that my site will be a part of the problem.

[Dick Eastman]

---> what is the best way to let people know about the link update... I have so many sites that link to my site. I hate those dead links

Good question! I wrote an answer but decided to make that answer into a newsletter article. You can read the answer at: http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/06/what-to-do-when-your-web-site-moves.html

- Dick Eastman

[Phyllis Porter]

Geocities is closing in October. They posted that information.
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/
It also says many cites have been archives and give a way to check
http://www.archive.org/index.php
If Geocities are not archived, you can add it.
Please spread the word.