Do you remember… “Under construction” GIFs?

Every self-respecting homepage had one. A yellow and black striped barrier, a little man digging with a shovel, maybe a flashing road sign, all announcing that the page was under construction. It usually stayed that way for years.

It was an honest sign, in its way. Personal websites were never finished. There was always a links page you meant to fill, a section about your cat you hadn’t got round to, a guestbook nobody had signed yet. The animated digger told visitors you hadn’t given up. You just hadn’t started.

In October 2009, as GeoCities was about to close, the archivist Jason Scott gathered hundreds of these GIFs from the rescued pages into one long, scrolling tribute called “This Page Is Under Construction”. It’s still the most finished-looking thing the old web ever produced.