Guestbooks

[Ava]

Guestbooks were, and still are, great. When I first starting spending time online, every site I went to had a guestbook. Visitors seem feel comfortable leaving guestbook messages and tagboard messages, more so than email. I still get a few email messages here and there, talking about how they enjoyed my sites, but it's never as much or as light-hearted as the guestbook messages.

What guestbook providers or scripts have you used in the past, or what do you use now? What are your opinions on those providers and scripts?

I used to use SignMyGuestbook, which is now defunct. For the last couple years, I've used Dreambook, but I slowly phased it out of my network because I didn't like the lack of customization features.

I'm currently looking at Dagon Guestbook and Bellabook. If anyone has experience with these scripts, what did you think of them?

[anon]

Man, guestbooks take me back! I remember on my first Geocities website, I added a guestbook and I was like WHOAAAA PEOPLE ACTUALLY VISITED MY SITE!!! when they left their mark. I like reading comments on guestbooks but I do hate it when people treat it as a plugboard and only leave messages like, "Visit my website plz!!!11" It's just like, seriously dudes?

I used to use signmyguestbook.com and had a good experience with them. Their customizing was pretty simple to use too, and they didn't have any ads. Unfortunately they later charged fees for their services. Not surprised to see them gone now. I also used a CGI guestbook but I forgot where it came from because my host installed it for me. That one was pretty cool to use too.

Sparklit guestbooks were also cool but you could barely customize them and there were like, so many ads. I never used Bravenet or HTML Gear but I didn't like how I had to close down like 3 windows before writing any entry. These days I use tagboards as any sort of guestbook because they're easy to install and customize. The only problem is that you can't really post replies to a specific tag, some people treat it as a chatroom, and there's no way to private a message.

I'm a fan of Jemjabella's scripts but I heard some of them were unsafe. You might want to check reviews on BellaBook before using it.

[dragoneyes]

Wow, it's been SO LONG since I last saw a guestbook on a site!
I never actually thought about putting one in any of my sites because, when I first started making them, guestbooks were already old news and not very used anymore, so it really never came to my mind to begin with.
This thread really takes me back! XD

[Yuzuki]

I'm actually considering for my FY site. Since my site is powered with a CMS, instead of installing a guestbook script, I plan to make a page with an empty article, and actually use the comment area as the "guestbook"

[anon]

I'm actually considering for my FY site. Since my site is powered with a CMS, instead of installing a guestbook script, I plan to make a page with an empty article, and actually use the comment area as the "guestbook"

You could also post updates in segmented articles on the front page and open comments for them! It could be helpful in building visitors if you reply to each comment so they know you're interested in their responses.

[nyxmidnight]

Personally I use Bellabooks every single time I need a guestbook! It's exceedingly simple to use, no SQL database required (everything's in .txt files), and there is an Akismet plugin compatible with it to cut down on spam. I also enable moderation so no signature is displayed without my checking it first, and if you wish, you can also enable a simple CAPTCHA included in the script.

[anon]

Sorry to bump this topic but I've been using a tagboard as a guestbook and I really feel like it's disorganized.

I just rediscovered what guestbook script I used back in 2004 and it's Active Scripts' Active Guestbook. It was really easy to customize and organize but the developers stopped updating it, which is a complete concern because this means that there may be security holes now. In fact, I think the reason why my website often got computer viruses injected onto the index may be because of this script.

I've taken a fascination to some Japanese guestbook scripts because I like how they're set up, but I'm kind of unsure of which one to choose.

My choices are narrowed down between the two:

CGI Pal's guestbook (demo): It lets visitors customize their entries by choosing which icon to display it with, which is a gimmick I find completely adorable. It doesn't let me respond to entries though.

Tacky's Room's kakikomitai (demo): It lets me respond to entries, which was a factor I considered in picking out guestbooks because I always feel bad when I get all these nice comments from people and don't return any. Each entry can be customized by picking a certain color to display it with but it looks like it can get spammed easily. I did a Google search on other websites who used kakikomitai and almost all guestbooks I found were spammed... including the one on Tacky's website.

None of these options allow private entries but I'm fine with that, and they're for non-commercial use, which is perfect for me. So which one do you think is good?

[Sofia]

So which one do you think is good?

Uhm…though choice. I think I would opt for CGI's guestbook; I got so many SPAM messages when I used to have a guestbook (aaaages ago) that I had to take it down. I've been thinking about bringing it back now that I have actual websites instead of just fanlistings, but I'm not sure someone would sign it XD

Back to your question Joe…does CGI guestbook let you see your visitor's email address? Because if that's the case you could send them an email instead of replying on the guestbook (which you cannot do with this script).