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Genealogy Web Page Tutorial

Geocities Extras

Table of Contents

GeoCities Page Counter Geocities Guest Books GeoCities Forms

Chat and Pagers Bulletin Boards

What is the GeoGuide? Take a look at the top of this page. On top of the advertisement are links to review this web page, to my guestbook and to my e-mail. Below the links is an advertising banner. Hit reload on your browser and a different banner will appear. Each time someone visits your page, there will be a new advertising banner; however, the links above the banner will remain the same. Both the advertising banner and the bar above together comprise a GeoGuide.

To add the GeoGuide to your pages is a five step process.

• Set up your new GeoGuide at the GeoGuide Manager
• Once you have set up your GeoGuide place the following code on every one of your pages by going to the File Manager editor:
  <!--#geoguide-->
• After you have placed the code on your page(s), activate your GeoGuide(s) at theGeoGuide Manager
• Create the banner to GeoCities specifications or have a GeoCities volunteer create one for you. This will be the ad for your web page that will be displayed on GeoGuides across all GeoCities web sites.
• Submit your banner to theGeoGuide Banner Exchange

Don't know how to create a banner? GeoCities has volunteers who will create one for you! Or use

• The Amazing Instant Online Animated Banner Maker
• The Banner Generator

Can you choose not to insert the geoguide on your pages? Of course! However, without the GeoGuide the alternative is what GeoCities calls a Pop-up ad. This is a small browser window with an ad that pops up in addition to your homepage. It ALWAYS freezes my browser, so I am sure it must freeze other people's browsers also. If you don't want visitors to your page upset that your web page has frozen their browser, I suggest the GeoGuide as a wonderful alternative. Besides, with the GeoGuide you get free advertising for your own web site.

<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/counter">

The counter knows which page it is on and counts for just that page.

In order to make sure your counter shows the correct count for each page, it's best to put the code as <IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/counter/#">where # is a different number for each page. This will ensure the counter loads anew for every page you have it on.

In order to remove a counter from any of your pages, simply remove the coding from that page.

The GeoCities Counter Manager allows you to change the numbers on your counters, see the total amount of hits your pages have received, and see the average hits per page you have received.

If you don't care to have a counter on your page, you can still keep track of hits to every one of your pages that have a Link Exchange banner. Link Exchange keeps page hit statistics.

• Set up the addbook (where the visitor writes his comments) and the geobook (where the comments are read) at the Guestbook Manager
• place the line of code given by GeoCities on your web page, and visitors who wish to view or enter a message are linked to your guestbook , where they leave their message. The messages are stored in the geobook.html as part of your file space, so that you are free to edit or delete any objectionable messages.

Once your guestbook has reached about 25,000 bytes in size (noted in the file manager), guests will no longer be able to leave messages. At this point, the best option is to divide your guestbook into two or more books that are linked together.

There are some other free guestbooks besides the ones GeoCities offers. Some people like to put two guestbooks (from different servers) on their web page in case one is down when a visitor wants to leave a message.

• Dreambook
  
• Lpage
  
• Guestbooks.net
• RTSavor Guestbook
  
• BeSeen Guestbook

In addition the the guestbook which GeoCities makes available to its homesteaders, there is also a form which can be used for other purposes. Unlike the guestbook, GeoCities Forms sends an e-mail to the webmaster (you!).

What can you do with GeoCities Forms?

• Well, for starters, you could use it for surname queries. Cut and paste the queries that are sent to you onto a query page you set up at your web site. This can be done by surname or geographic area. Visitors to your page can then browse through the list of queries that have been sent to you as well as set up their own query.
• Use it as a way for other family researchers to send you their name and e-mail address.
• Use it as a suggestion box.
• Use it to accept corrections to your pages.
• Use it to accept family or geographic event information.
• Use it to take a survey.
• Use it accept links if you are posting links on a particular subject.

You can set the forms page to accept comments or multiple choice answers to questions. When the submit button is clicked, an e-mail will be sent to you, and the page will return to any page that you set up. The e-mail address used is the e-mail address used when you set up your home in GeoCities, NOT your GeoCities address.

Here is an example of a GeoCities form page. Feel free to try entering answers into the form. I have it set up to return to generic page that posts that your message has been sent. Take the Survey to see an example of the GeoCities form page.

This basic example of a form will send the member an E-mail with the following format:

Subject: Survey Results

Sent from Mail Form posted at:   
http://www.oocities.org/homestead/sampleform1.html

(NAME)  GeoCities User
{helpfulness}  somewhat
(visit)  monthly
{comments} This tutorial has helped me.
(subject)  Survey Results
(next-url)  /homestead/next_page.html

Can you have more than one form? Sure, use a different form for each of the examples above if you choose. Be sure to use a different subject title so you can keep the responses to the different forms separate.

Most webmasters of Chat Rooms will set a particular time each week for meetings.

Chatrooms

• BeSeen Chat
  Java chat room. Visitors must have a browser which can handle not only Java, but frames as well.
  
• Parachat
  Java chat room. Easy to use and set up, but won't work with Macintosh or WebTV visitors.
  
• Artesian Well
  A new version is about to be introduced

Also available are paging facilities, which will alert you when friends are online.

• ICQ
  ICQ - I Seek You - allows you to keep an address book of individuals, and lets you know when they are online with cute (or annoying, depending on your mood) sounds. You can then e-mail them, or meet in a chat room. Very similar to Instant Messages on AOL, but not restricted to one server.
  
• Excite PAL
  Excite PAL lets you know when your online friends and family are on-line. It can be used for conferencing.

GeoCities free web pages do not provide a CGI bin, therefore you cannot have a message area directly on your web page. However, it is still possible to have a bulletin board at a GeoCities web site. Simply link to the BB from your GeoCities page. Visitors will not be able to tell that they have left GeoCities. On the BB page, you may include links back to your GeoCities web site.

• Inside The Web
  Creates a bulletin board on Inside the Web's server.
• BeSeen
  Creates a bulletin board on BeSeen's server.