For the first time, the guest book appeared on the World Wide Web around December 24, 1996. It represented and represents software, most often in the form of a script. It is necessary that the hosting hosting the guest book supports the execution of programs in the server language. If the hosting does not support the desired language, then special guestbook services have been created for such cases. Such an innovation as a guest book very quickly became widespread in the network, as it gave visitors the opportunity to leave their thoughts about the site, any comments or wishes. In terms of basic characteristics, a guest book is very similar to a web forum, only simplified to the maximum.
At the moment, guest books have very wide possibilities: from standard message moderation to visual text editors. However, the minimum functionality is, of course, the ability to leave messages.
Thanks to guest books, site owners, or their administrators, have the opportunity to improve the quality of pages and topics on their site. Very often, visitors give advice on improving certain details of the site. Using these notes, administrators can not guess what is more convenient or interesting for their users, but know for sure, thereby increasing the flow of visitors. Probably, this positive quality gave no small impetus to the development of guest books on the World Wide Web.
Guest books were especially popular at the end of the 20th century as a way of feedback from site owners or future visitors. However, even now many business and amateur sites use this type of connection, but not so massively.