Here is a selection of remotely hosted guestbooks.

Bravenet Web Services http://www.bravenet.com/ Bravenet's guestbook service is extremely popular for good reason. It's well designed and implemented, quick and efficient. Some customization, although not as much as I would desire. Highly recommended.

Dreambook http://www.dreambook.com/ Unlike most guestbook servers (free and otherwise), you can completely customize Dreambook to match your site. In normal editing mode, you can pick from a variety of templates (some of which were submitted by users just like you), and if you switch into advanced mode, you can edit html directly to make your own custom forms. You decide what fields appear in your guestbook, and how they are arranged. You can even ask your visitors questions and create complex questionnaires.

Global Guest http://globalguest.com/ Simple, easy guestbook service. Not as customizable as some guestbooks, but simple to set up.

HTML Gear http://www.lpage.com/ Extremely nice guestbook service with lots of options. This service was good in past, so good, in fact, that it was recently purchased by Lycos. Only time will tell if Lycos improves service or ruins it.

LemNet.Com http://www.lemnet.com/ Good guestbook service. Fast, reliable and very customizable. You can define up to 10 custom questions, and there is a wide range default questions, such as name, email address with link, website with link, ICQ number with status indicator and comments. These can be enabled by checking a box.

Additional Information

http://www.internet-tips.net/Webmaster/maintguestbooks.htm Maintain Your Guestbook - Many webmasters include a guestbook on their site. Guestbooks are important and must be well kept to be useful.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Surfing/netiquette_guestbooks.htm Netiquette - Guestbook Entries - Guestbooks are a great way to leave public messages to a webmaster. Just be nice, complementary and helpful.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Surfing/Guestbooks_presents.htm Graphics in guestbooks are cool - If you want, you can leave a small graphic in a guestbook to add some class.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Surfing/Guestbooks_photoloft.htm Using Photoloft for your images If you are leaving presents in guestbooks, it's important not to steal bandwidth. Photoloft is an inexpensive way to leave presents without being unethical.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Legal/Bandwidth.htm Bandwidth stealing - Bandwidth stealing is linking to images or scripts from another site without permission, thus using that sites bandwidth without compensation.

http://www.internet-tips.net/Legal/sins_bandwidth.htm Sins of internet- Bandwidth Stealing - This sin costs hosts millions of dollars a year - and often you don't even know that you did it!

http://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl/spyware.htm

Introductions - These free items are attempts to get you to make a purchase by giving you something for free first. For example, a web host might give you a small web site with very limited functionality and then offer you a better site for a fee. The free products are perfectly acceptable although they are not as useful as one requiring an additional fee.

A good example of this kind of free thing is service offered by Atomz, which is a web site search engine. You can sign up with them and obtain your own free search engine for your web site. It is free as long as you need less than 500 pages, at which time you must begin paying for service.

Samples - This is very easy to understand. Some companies will give you a sample of their products or services for free, hoping that you will purchase additional copies at some future time.

Viral Marketing - Oftentimes free item is actually, in-of-itself a marketing or promotional tool. A great example of viral marketing is electronic greeting cards which you commonly find on web sites. These cards are fun to send and, of course, completely free. Each card also contains, at a minimum, a link back to hosting web site (often simply promoting fact that a return card can be sent). This serves to expose web site to new visitors in a subtle, non-offensive manner.

Promotional - The idea here is to give you something for free in hopes that it will get you to buy something now or at least remind you of company or products later. A great example of these is free coffee cups that companies give away by boatload at conventions. Each of these mugs has company name and logo plastered all over it, which presumably you will look at occasionally. This, in theory, will keep brand name on your mind and at ready when opportunity arises.

I'm sure there are many other reasons for giving away free things. However, these are some of most common ones.

The point is that it's very rare for anything to be offered free, no strings attached. Virtually always something is exchanged, and that exchange may not be obvious and may not be entirely understood by person receiving free item. This is especially true of spyware, which is one of newer and potentially more sinister breeds of free stuff.