Should I put a guestbook on my site?

[cheekyabi789]

does anyone know how to put a guest book on to my website?

[ryan26]

Loaded question with a million ways to answer.

If you're looking to host the guestbook yourself, start by identifying what type of web server you're using - Apache, Microsoft IIS - and do some research on the guestbook apps available for your platform. You'll want to install one of these applications on your site, which can be extremely tricky if you're not very technical. Pay attention to the read-me's and FAQs provided with the software -- they will either be tailored to non-technical folk or not and it will be very obvious!

If this already seems scary, I'm sure there are a bunch of good hosted solutions you can look into. Do a Google search for 'guestbooks' or 'free guestbooks'... you're sure to stumble across something worth following down.

[cheekyabi789]

Thank you for replying, ive added one! :)

[D_Blackwell]

If a guest book is 'just there', merely another page, it runs the risk of becoming embarassing to the site. Here is a current example from a potential client that I did not accept.

USA - Saturday, October 04, 2003 at 09:09:38 (PDT)

The last entry is well over two years old, yet the site is active, and needed by those who use it. It just makes an awful impression to see something like this.

This is but one reason that I'm not a fan of guest books at all. Low value content would be a close second.