SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Yahoo! said it has closed GeoCities, a free Web hosting service with which Yahoo! used to host websites created by its users all over the world.

Yahoo! had purchased GeoCities for over three billion dollars during the dot-com boom.

“We have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways. Beginning on October 26, 2009, you will no longer be able to use GeoCities to maintain a free presence online — but we're excited about the other services we have designed to help you connect with friends and family and share your activities and interests,” Yahoo! said on its website.

The company has recommended that the users use another Web Hosting service of the company, which works a lot like GeoCities but includes a personalized domain name (such as widgetdesigns.com) and matching email, new site building tools, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, premium customer support, and more. “With this service, you can also download your pages and images to your own computer, then re-create your site with any hosting provider,” Yahoo! said.

The company has further said that when GeoCities closes, the users will be able to upgrade your GeoCities Plus account to Yahoo! Web Hosting at no extra charge. They will not experience any change to your site, and do not need to download their files, it added.

Yahoo! profits in the third quarter of the financial year reported last week had exceeded expectations, despite the company's revenue falling by 12 per cent in the last year. This was due to tremendous cost cutting.