18 Days Later: Undead GeoCities Pages Roam the Interwebs

by Kerry Dean on 11/12/2009 at 2:31 pm in Industry News, Observations, SEO

Zombieland was an awesome movie. But what happens when zombies overtake the internet in URL form? Well, I’m not exactly sure what happens. All I can tell you is that 18 days ago Yahoo closed GeoCities. Geocities had a lot of pages. Tens of millions. Maybe a hundred million. I’m not really sure about that either. Now that I think about it, I don’t really know much at all. However, I do know that there are at least 64 GeoCities pages that are not dead. They are undead. Here’s a list I created, sorted alphabetically:

• http://www.geocities.com/~deltaxiphi/
• http://www.geocities.com/~edboxer/
• http://www.geocities.com/~smewmao/indexbsd.html
• http://www.geocities.com/albislam/
• http://www.geocities.com/aliwonder.geo/
• http://www.geocities.com/angelo_clerici/
• http://www.geocities.com/aradovac/
• http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8777/Articoli/Stomeo_it.html
• http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/2932/index.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/Baja/8205/truss.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/billnict@sbcglobal.net/troop683/troop683_index.html
• http://www.geocities.com/broadwayphan81/HughPanaro
• http://www.geocities.com/bsa789/
• http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/7639/atmosphere/wthrsta/predict2.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/cguil_uk/
• http://www.geocities.com/chestnutcrest/Farm.html
• http://www.geocities.com/christinaofencinitas/index.html
• http://www.geocities.com/club_oasis_atl/
• http://www.geocities.com/crawdadcreekrehab/Raccoon.html
• http://www.geocities.com/cuhsa/
• http://www.geocities.com/draganakonstantinovic/pesmarica.html
• http://www.geocities.com/EASTSUSSEXBSA@BTINTERNET.COM/
• http://www.geocities.com/eco16thinf/
• http://www.geocities.com/ed2pc/
• http://www.geocities.com/emmanuelemmaus/index.html
• http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Cottage/6102/
• http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/4678/indexpublish.html
• http://www.geocities.com/gmwhelan/Moviemusicals/Christine/masquerade.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/6973/
• http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/3798/georgia.html
• http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/1478/sloth.html
• http://www.geocities.com/hotspur311/
• http://www.geocities.com/id_munro/
• http://www.geocities.com/illiniweb2003/
• http://www.geocities.com/imadethispottery/
• http://www.geocities.com/iraqinfo/
• http://www.geocities.com/jamesrattue/fould_home.html
• http://www.geocities.com/julia_otero/
• http://www.geocities.com/juliadurango/
• http://www.geocities.com/kayaktrips/deutsch.html
• http://www.geocities.com/lastpublichang/
• http://www.geocities.com/lexplose/inicio_francais.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/lorigardeweg/
• http://www.geocities.com/lossiecottage/index.html
• http://www.geocities.com/markpalm94598/Soccer.html
• http://www.geocities.com/martin3162/catala.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/multiplicationfacts/
• http://www.geocities.com/newclovercreek/
• http://www.geocities.com/outsidepix2000/webdesign.html
• http://www.geocities.com/pamelacollins93063/
• http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/vines/2382/
• http://www.geocities.com/rargenter/dove.html
• http://www.geocities.com/sjbloom2/index.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/socialistparty/leftunity1.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1823/
• http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/1823/anak/
• http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/3276/bn.html
• http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Study/6309/awakening101.html
• http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/8849/Moviemusicals/Christine/masquerade.htm
• http://www.geocities.com/theberkule/
• http://www.geocities.com/thedoghse/door.html
• http://www.geocities.com/wellesley/1914/
• http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/9172/castle.html
• http://www.geocities.com/yvain.geo/shakhist.html

If Yahoo closed GeoCities on October 26, 2009, why are we still seeing GeoCities pages that are live? Are they after our brains? Or could they possibly be persuaded to link to me? Let’s hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Actually, Yahoo did say that GeoCities Plus accounts would stay active. Thanks to Matt McGee for getting Yahoo to confirm that. But that brings up a really big issue: Google, Yahoo and Bing have removed GeoCities URLs from their respective indices. Does that mean that these GeoCities Plus pages can never show up in the SERPs? If so, do these GeoCities Plus account users feel cheated? First, they have to pay to have their GeoCities pages kept alive. Furthermore, their pages now get less search traffic. I think I would be a little upset, especially if my GeoCities page represented an income for me.

FYI, there is a site called Reocities, which tried to index/salvage as much of GeoCities as possible. The Internet Archive also announced plans to archive as much of GeoCities as possible because they, too, wanted to keep the legacy alive. I applaud the efforts of those sites.