The Express Page
The Express Page (also known as Expage for short) was a website offering "Free homepages for all users of the World Wide Web". Users could create basic homepages under the Expage domain through use of rudimentary editing tools designed for those with little to no knowledge of web design, although a link to funky-chickens.com was offered to aid those wishing to add HTML content to their homepages. Each username would create one homepage, but users could easily register multiple names and link each page together in order to create a full website. Aside from those found in Expage's clip art gallery, users could host their own graphics through Photoloft, with which Expage was partnered. This was a free feature to Expage users for a few years before Photoloft eventually began charging for their service. Photoloft discontinued its services entirely in 2003.
Expage controlled the use of profanity on users' accounts by censoring curse words and replacing them with underscores, although it was later discovered by some users that this could be bypassed simply by placing a </> tag in the middle of the word. Homepages were frequently checked and removed without warning for content violating Expage's terms of use. Additionally, offensive content could be reported to support@expage.com for swift removal.
While Expage's editing software was intended to be accessible and easily utilized, it consequently featured virtually no advanced options for power users and contained a rather low character limit, thus detailed homepages were difficult to create without some sacrifice of content. As the years passed, Expage's popularity waned with the rise of MySpace and other online communities, eventually leading to a cessation of its services in 2007. Before closing down, the website boasted a counter of over 21 million homepages created since its inception around 1997.