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What is Guestbook Hosting?
A guest book is one of the oldest and simplest means of getting feedback on your website. It is a centralized place to invite comments, asking visitors to your site to say hello and leave their name and contact information. Where did this idea come from anyway?
Metaphors are a funny thing. The internet isn’t really very much like anything else we have in “real” life, and so the way we talk about it and think about it has had to develop.
When the internet was first invented, the primary action of “browsing” the internet involved requesting and viewing documents. The documents were stored on other people’s computers, and the ability to access them from a distance was quite a breakthrough.
At first, the documents tended to be whatever they had before the internet. Reports, files, magazine articles. Same old content, but with a new way to access it.
Pretty soon, though, people started creating documents specifically for the internet. They started to call these things “web pages.” It’s still a document, but with content, formatting, and tone specifically geared toward public viewers.
At first, these pages and documents were just put in a single directory — the /www/ (world wide web) directory. Someone who wanted to see what you had in your publicly accessible /www/ folder would call it up on their computer, and view a directory file listing. Just a list of file names, nothing more.
Then someone started to created index pages. This was a single, custom-made page that told other people what was in that directory. But it was more than just a list of files — you could put whatever content you wanted into it.
And people did.
These index pages turned into “Home Pages,” and our modern metaphor for the internet was born.
Websites and Home Pages
At first, “Home” in “Home Page” meant the home document for the directory — an index or listing that provides information about the contents. But it wasn’t long before people started thinking about it as “the online home of my organization.”
This is a metaphor. No one actually lives there. We just imagine that the website is the place where the business or school or club “lives” online.
“Website” is another metaphor that came out of this period. As users of the internet got conceptually further and further away from the notion that they were viewing documents on another computer, the metaphor of physical location completely took over. You didn’t make documents public; you “built” a “home” on a “site.”
Interestingly, the metaphors remained mixed: People still talk about “pages of a website.” As social media and web apps take over the internet, it will be interesting to see how these metaphors change.
Visitors and Guest books
One of the consequences of thinking about a website as a physical location is that we also tend to think of people who view our web pages as “visitors.” We say they “came to my sight.” We talk about how long they stayed.
It would be just as natural to talk about these people as viewers, or readers, or browsers. But we call them “visitors.”
This metaphor is perfectly reasonable, although it is sort of amusing when a website has a prominent “Welcome to the Online Home of XYZ Organization, We hope you enjoy your stay” message on their home page.
Because we started thinking about website viewers as “visitors,” many people started to try to treat them as guests.
And thus, the guest book was born.
What is a guest book?
A guest book is simply an online version of the guest books commonly found at weddings and parties. Some stores and restaurants have them too. They are are a way to leave your name and contact information, and a brief message for the host.
On websites, they aren’t literally a book (there’s another one of those metaphors!). They usually are just a page with a form and a listing of other people’s comments. In fact, if you can’t see other people’s entries, it isn’t really a guest book at all. The whole fun of a guest book is seeing what other people wrote. (Website guest books are the precursor to the Facebook wall.)
Pros and Cons of Guestbooks
Guestbooks are fun, and they provide a way for visitors to your site to leave feedback and contact information. They also let people see what others have to say about you.
The big problem with guest books is that the concept can seem very dated, especially if your site caters to a younger demographic.
Guest book hosting
Several web hosting companies provide easy-to-use guest book software which can be installed from your hosting control panel. This will set up a guest book for you.
Another option, if you are running your site on a content management system like WordPress or Drupal, is to use a guest book plugin. You can also simply use the built-in commenting feature, and designate a single page as “the guest book.”
