Yahoo! Geocities: the epitome of average
Written: Aug 13 '00
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Yahoo! Geocities is one of the many free services available on the web that provide space, tools and, resources for you to create your own web pages. Generally, these services are very similar, but each have their own strong points and drawbacks. Deciding which one is the "best" is highly dependant on the individual needs of the user.
Things a user will need to consider are:
Ease of Use
Amount of Space available
Other Resources and tools
Usability and Stability
Advertising
Terms of Service
Yahoo! Geocities Web Pages
Yahoo offers a plethora of services including Yahoo! Messenger, Chat, Message Boards, etc., and "Geocities" is their personal web page service. If you already have an account with Yahoo under one of these other services, your Yahoo! membership is already set up with them with the same ID and password.. Building the page is all you need to do, and I find Geocitie's strong point to be the extreme ease of use.
Easy to Use
This service is ideal for beginners. Computer novices and children alike are able to create a personal web page easily using the Yahoo!Page Wizards. This requires only selecting a style for your page from a pre-designed template and answering some questions for content. File upload for your own pictures or graphics is available here, and the upload process is very easy to understand. For more creative control and a less simplistic page, you can use the Yahoo!Page Builder. This is a drag & drop editor that allows you create a full-featured site with text, pictures, sounds and other add-ons.
I particularly like that Geocities includes these choices, in that members who begin with no HTML or web site knowledge have an opportunity to learn gradually as they advance to another web building tool. The next step up is using the Advanced HTML Editor which gives the user access to the raw HTML source. Here you can make changes, copy and paste, or even write your own HTML.
The File Manager and the upload utilities are also quite easy to use.
Space
Most users find that they don't need the near the amount of space provided by these services. Geocities offering here, 15 mbs is an average amount and on par with services like Homestead (16 mbs). It takes quite alot of text, graphics, and scripting to use up this much space. However, if this is a consideration there are certainly other services that provide much more (Topcities-50 mbs).
Resources
With regard to page building resources for your site, Geocities has a very good selection of graphics and add-on utilities such as counters, feedback forms, guestbooks, search boxes, etc.
Promotional resources for your site are available as well, as is availability to Yahoo!Help Chat, Clubs and all other Yahoo services.
Usability and Stability
One drawback I have consistantly had with Yahoo overall is occasional server problems. In addition, photos seem to load very slowly on these sites. Also, the upload process is slow. Patience isn't my strong suit.
Advertising
Ah, the catch! Free services like this one will use banners, pop-up windows or stationary advertising bars on your site in exchange for the free space, but it's a pretty good trade. Geocities uses a very small pop-up window that opens upon entry that can be minimized (or maximized, yeah right). Compared to some other free site hosts this is really not too bad. Some have windows that continue to pop us as the surfer tries to read your page.
Terms of Service
As TOS's go, Geocitie's is pretty standard, but as always I encourage you to read it in it's entirety. It's your basic "do no harm", no illegal content or spamming, etc. and covers both member conduct and their privacy policy (among other things). An important rule is that Yahoo!Geocitie's free service is not for business use. Commercial use is prohibited, with the exception of those who have enrolled in Yahoo-approved affiliate programs.
Yahoo! Geocities is an average service at best, but is very good for beginners. If you are already part of the Yahoo! Community, using Geocities for your personal page might be of interest to you as well. But with so many to chose from, Yahoo!'s offering seems to be just another "also ran".
Recommended:
Yes
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teddiec
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