Some free web hosting alternatives to Yahoo! GeoCities

As I'm sure you know by now if you're interested in such things, Yahoo! are going to shut down their GeoCities free web hosting service at some point later this year. This will result in the permanent loss of tens of thousands of small personal websites. It is a great shame, especially for me, because I have had a small personal site hosted there since 1999, when GeoCities was the third most visited website in the world - it feels like I am going to lose an old friend!

It's quite laughable really, and further explains why Yahoo! is in regular financial trouble these days - in 1999 Yahoo! purchased GeoCities (which was until then an independent NASDAQ-listed company) for $3.57 billion in their own stock. And now, 10 years later, Yahoo! are going to shut it down!!

That is, by any measure, a rather large finacial write-off - equivalent to $357,000,000 per year in fact, minus whatever advertising revenue they managed to pull in (and surely that would have been nowhere near the break-even point), if my maths with such ridiculously large sums of money is correct. Oops! And people actually still respect the "big bosses of industry"! LMAO!!

Anyway, happily there are at least two excellent alternatives to GeoCities if you want to host a small personal website for free. I use both of these services:

1. WebRing.com (who were also once-upon-a-time taken over by Yahoo!, but luckily for them and us they "escaped" intact a few years later!)

Important and helpful note: WebRing are actually offering a lovely free "GeoCities relocation" service to anyone who currently has a GeoCities site and wants to move it to a new free home before it gets lost forever. Click here to find out more about the service.

2. Webs.com (formerly, and still also available as, FreeWebs.com)

My sites hosted with them are the Cartoon and Movie Wallpapers Collection site I mentioned in my post yesterday (which is hosted by WebRing) and My Home Page (which is hosted by Webs).

So, give them a go if you want a proper little website for free in addition to whatever web presence you may already have in Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live, Twitter, Blogger, YouTube, etc., etc.