Why Personal Websites Are Coming Back

For a while, the personal website looked like a leftover from an earlier Internet.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, having your own home page was fairly normal for anyone who spent much time online. Internet providers often included a little web space with an account. Services such as GeoCities made it possible for ordinary people to put up pages about their hobbies, families, favorite bands, computers, pets, or whatever else interested them.

The results weren’t always pretty. There was blinking text, animated GIFs, visitor counters, guestbooks, tiled backgrounds and enough “Under Construction” graphics to rebuild the Interstate Highway System. But those sites belonged to people in a way most of today’s Internet does not.