Yahoo! GeoCities is a web hosting service founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet (BHI).

In its original form, site users selected a "city" in which to place their web pages. The "cities" were named after real cities or regions according to their content—for example, computer-related sites were placed in "SiliconValley" and those dealing with entertainment were assigned to "Hollywood"—hence the name of the site. This feature has since been abandoned; however, a number of older sites using the original "city" system still exist.

In April 2009, Yahoo announced that it will close GeoCities later in the year. The site is no longer accepting new registrations.

History

The first GeoCities logo The GeoCities logo of the late 1990s The first Yahoo! GeoCities logo GeoCities began as BHI, which stood for "Beverly Hills Internet", a small Web hosting and development company in Southern California. The company also created its own Web directory, organized thematically in six "neighborhoods." The neighborhood included "Colosseum," "Hollywood," "RodeoDrive," "SunsetStrip," "WallStreet," and "WestHollywood." In mid-1995, the company decided to offer users (thereafter known as "Homesteaders") the ability to develop free home pages within those neighborhoods. Chat, bulletin boards, and other elements of "community" were added soon after, helping foster rapid growth. On July 5, 1995 Geocities added additional cities, including "CapitolHill," "Paris," "SiliconValley," and "Tokyo." By December 1995, the company, which now had a total of 14 neighborhoods, was signing up thousands of Homesteaders a day and getting over six million monthly page views. The company decided to focus on building membership and community, and on December 15, 1995, BHI became known as GeoCities after having also been called Geopages. At that point GeoCities was headquartered at 9401 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. By December 1996 it was headquartered on the third floor of 1918 Main Street in Santa Monica, with an office on the 8th floor of 125 Park Avenue in Manhattan, New York City.

Over time, many companies, including Yahoo!, invested extensively in GeoCities and, with the introduction of paid premium services, the site continued to grow. In May 1997, GeoCities introduced advertisements on its pages. Despite negative reaction from users, GeoCities continued to grow. By June 1997, GeoCities was the fifth most popular site on the Web, and by October of that year the company had signed up its millionth Homesteader.Fact: date=May 2009

In June 1998, in an effort to increase brand awareness, GeoCities introduced a watermark to user web pages. The watermark, much like an onscreen graphic on some television channels, was a transparent floating GIF which used JavaScript to stay on the bottom right side of the browser screen. Many users felt the watermark interfered with the design of their website and threatened to move their web pages elsewhere. The watermark also had cross-browser issues. GeoCities claimed in a press release that the company had received upbeat feedback regarding the watermark.