Getting Started on Your Website

Yahoo Geocities Overview

There are a number of internet companies (Yahoo is only one of them) that are so eager for you to get started with them, that they let you save your webpages for free on their computer; a computer which is online all the time. They are not being kind and generous; they make money in two ways. First all free accounts I have found, put ads on your website. When you make webpages that other people visit, your visitors see ads from companies that pay Yahoo for advertising; your website gives Yahoo more ad space to sell so they can make more money while offering you a free site. It’s a win-win, as long as you can stand the ads. The second way Yahoo makes money is when you upgrade to a pay account. As you build your website you will eventually decide that you can’t stand the ads, or you need more space for your webpages (note that’s not want, NEED, we are talking about a compulsion that borders on addiction here…), or want other added features that aren’t available for free. So when your plans for your little corner of the internet finally outgrow your hold on your wallet, Yahoo makes money when you upgrade to a pay account. Most places like Yahoo have pay accounts for as little as $5/month, all to make it so tempting that you can’t stop yourself from upgrading. If you have willpower and a tight wallet, you can actually survive on a well-designed free website just fine, but if you don’t have both going for you, you’ll probably cave at some point. So if you want a site NOW, open another browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, or whatever you have) and follow along.

Go to www.geocities.com, as of 2005 July 19th, this page offers 3 options. The most important option for us is “GeoCities FREE Web Hosting” Hosting is the technical term for what we want them to do. Yahoo is your “host” and they will “host” your webpages; ie they will let you save your webpages on the hard drive of one of their computers that is online all the time. Click the “Sign Up” button next to the $0/month, assuring you that your site won’t cost you anything. If you want more information, there is a “Learn More” link next to the button that will give you all the details. (And yes, I’m very lazy. I don’t usually capitalize geocites or use the yahoo exclamation point, so for the first and last time, I do recognize it is officially “Yahoo! GeoCities”.)

If you don’t mind spending some money, Geocities also offers various plans include the following features: not placing ads on your webpages, more space (that means you can have bigger and/or more webpages), your own domain name like www.mywebpages.com (Otherwise your website address will look like www.geocities.com/mywebpages/index.html.), five email accounts that end with your domain (for instance, me@mywebpages.com). Geocities also offers the critically important domain forwarding (when people type www.mywebpages.com it goes to where your site is really at www.geocities.com/mywebpages). However, geocities does not offer domain masking. (People type in www.mywebpages.com and that’s still what they see when your page comes up, geocities does not have this feature. With geocities people will type www.mywebpages.com, but once they arrive at your site they will see its real address www.geocities.com/mywebpages.) If you would like this more professional looking feature, www.godaddy.com hosts websites with all of geocities' features plus domain masking. Godaddy is also frequently cheaper than geocities, however they offer no free services so I won’t discuss them much here.

NOTE: There is a setup fee if you choose one of the geocities pay accounts. Don’t be a sucker. Geocities won’t tell you, but there are ads deeper in the website that waive the setup fee. Select the free account and follow the instructions. As you set up your free account, they have ads for the pay accounts with “added incentives” where the setup fee is waived, and you can select one of these.

Get a Yahoo ID

If you already have a Yahoo ID and password enter it now. If you have Yahoo mail, Yahoo Instant Messenger or any other Yahoo services, the name and password you use for those services are the Yahoo ID to enter here. You can log in now and skip this section. If you don’t already have a Yahoo ID, you need to create one to use any Yahoo service. (This includes Geocities.) Remember to make a good password and feel free to use our tips. Click the “Sign up” link below the phrase, “Don’t have a Yahoo! ID?”

Fill out the information on your own but here are a few tips…

• Take advantage of the “Check Availability of This ID” button: the little button underneath the Yahoo ID line that says. Yahoo has an enormous number of users and many IDs have already been taken. Adding 2 or 3 numbers to your name is generally an easy way to modify an ID that you want.
• I’m also a believer in Yahoo mail though I won’t go into detail here. If nothing else, I store all my webpages on my Yahoo email account and my home computer so that if they are damaged, I can quickly retrieve them. Yahoo mail is also nice because you can access it anywhere (work, home, friend’s house, traveling) from any computer with an internet connection. Unless you have a specific reason not to, I recommend having the box next to “Yahoo mail” checked. Yahoo mail is also a free service.
• You don’t need to enter any information that doesn’t have a red asterix next to it. I haven’t let the threat of identity theft stop me from doing something I wanted to do, including shopping on the internet. However, it is a real possibility on the internet today, and I never give out any information anywhere that I don’t absolutely have to.

Get a GeoCities Free Account

This part is easy. Once you’ve entered your YahooID, Yahoo already has everything they need to sign you up for geocities. All you have to do is select the ads you want. You then get a website at the address www.geocities.com/yourYahooID