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Geocities Finally Set To Shut Down In March 2019

I daresay that there are many of you reading this who may never have heard of Geocities. That’s no criticism either as for a long time now the website has been largely forgotten or only remembered with perhaps a slight cringe for the midi music that often accompanied them. For those of us who were regular internet users in the 90’s though, the chances are we all had a Geocities page.

In a nutshell, the website offered people the chance to build a very basic website. It ran on a free-basis with a fairly decent WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface. While you couldn’t exactly make a polished website, you could at least have a bit of fun.

I Thought This Had Already Shutdown?

Well, there you are kind of right! For the vast majority of users, Yahoo (who purchased it for $3.6bn in 1999) effectively closed the website in 2009. Well, at least for most of us in the West. It seems, however, that it has still been a going concern in Japan. No one really knows why, but yes, Geocities in Japan is still a thing. Not for much longer though. In a report via CNET, Yahoo will officially be shutting down the service in Japan in March 2019. This will be the final closure for the website and will be the full and final shut down of the Geocities brand.

You Can Still Check It Out?

If you visit the Japanese version of the Yahoo search engine, you should still be able to access it if you want to try it out for yourself. Just remember to have a bunch of low-quality images, some hideous font selections and, of course, a suitable terrible midi track ready for that final slice of nostalgia to really be authentic!

What do you think? Did you ever have a Geocities websites? When was the last time you used the service? Are you a little saddened to see it go? – Let us know in the comments!