The once-upon-a-time-most-trafficked Web sites, Yahoo’s GeoCities, will finally see its shutters being pulled today, for good. The simple site, though not too well-designed, allowed countless Internet surfers a free access to the Web, the world over.

Practically the first mainstream model of an open, participatory and personal Internet, GeoCities enabled all Web users the free construction of a custom Web page, along with reserving some virtual storage capacity for keeping documents as well as pictures.

At the turn of the century, the apparently omnipresent GeoCities was among the top-five players on the Web, with thousands of people –including children and teenagers - creating their own sites about their respective areas of interest. All those creative pages will now be taken off, and will disappear forever!

While the GeoCities site stopped accepting new registrations early this year onwards; existing users were still allowed to continue updating their pages, with Yahoo encouraging them to transfer their accounts to the company’s paid Web hosting service, at $5 monthly charge.

About the decision to shutter GeoCities, a Yahoo spokeswoman said: “Yahoo continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences. GeoCities' closing is part of our ongoing effort to prioritize our portfolio of products and services in order to deliver the best products to consumers.”