Guestbook

Such paper-based ledgers or books are traditional in churches, at weddings, funerals, B&Bs, museums, schools, institutions and other private facilities open to the public.

Generally, they do not require the poster to create a user account, as it is an informal method of dropping off a quick message.

The purpose of a website guestbook is to display the kind of visitors the site gets, including the part of the world they reside in, and gain feedback from them.

A guestbook is generally a script, which is usually remotely hosted and written in a language such as Perl, PHP, Python or ASP.

Because guestbooks are considered ephemeral objects, historians, literary scholars and other academic researchers have been increasingly eager to identify and help conserve them.