Webs

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Revision as of 06:33, 14 February 2021 by Tech234a (talk | contribs) (Add REST API information, site/user ID information, start writing endpoints of interest)
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Webs
Webs logo
Webs - 1-4-21.png
URL https://www.webs.com/
Status Closing
Archiving status Upcoming...
Archiving type Unknown
Project source webs-grab
IRC channel #webbed (on hackint)

Webs (formerly Freewebs) is a web host founded in 2001 offering free and paid website hosting. It is shutting down on 2021-03-31 with paid sites being partially migrated to the parent company Vistaprint.[1] As of 2014, at least 55 million sites have been created with Webs, according to the site's 404 page.[2]

Site Structure

Sites hosted on Webs are accessible from sitename.webs.com, freewebs.com/sitename, and the site's custom domain, if configured. The site owner can choose the primary URL that can be used to access the site, as well as change the site name from an older user settings page.

Most sites contain a robots.txt file at /robots.txt and a sitemap at /sitemap.xml, though some older sites appear to lack a sitemap. Sitemaps also contain a last modified date which appears to always be the same for all pages in the sitemap. The /sitemap.xml file does not seem to be accessible under the freewebs.com URL for a website.

Site Builders

Analytics code in the source code of all pages hosted by Webs (search for "webs.stats") indicates the site builder used to create the website. Possible values for "builderType" include "SB_1_OR_2" for sites created by the first two generations of site builders and "SB_3" for the third generation site builder.

"SB_3" was also used by Vistaprint for their previous site builder (known as Websites (V3)), though Vistaprint now uses a new site builder known as Websites (V4), which is referred to in "builderType" as "tower". The infrastructure for "SB_3" is shared between Webs and Vistaprint; features between the products are nearly identical and the website/user ID counter is shared between the two companies. Vistaprint Websites (V4) now uses an infrastructure that is mostly separate from Webs (it seems statistics collection may still be shared).

Sites and User IDs

It appears that Webs initially used a system where each user directly logged into a website; websites were user accounts. Around 2009, they introduced a system where each site would be linked to a container account known as a "Webs ID". Webs IDs can have multiple websites associated with them. Internally, websites are still considered user accounts and are still given user IDs. It appears most website accounts are associated with a Webs ID or Vistaprint account. Website accounts may not be associated with a Webs ID or Vistaprint account if they predated the Webs ID system (though the migration to Webs ID may have been made mandatory at some point) or if they are sandbox websites. Sandbox websites are temporary websites that can be used to try the Webs editor before creating an account. You can create a sandbox website (and later optionally associate it with a Webs ID) by visiting https://members.webs.com/s/signup/sandbox (link found in Webs' robots.txt). Internally, it appears that websites and Webs IDs are differentiated by the same ID field, meaning that the highest user ID number appears to increase for each Webs ID and for each website created separately. This means that each Webs user may have multiple ID numbers associated with their account, including their website ID(s) and their account ID. As of February 2021, this number ranges from 1 to well under 143 million, and increases by several hundred each day.

Endpoints of Interest

You can convert a site/user ID into a URL by using the following endpoint: http://profiles.members.webs.com/Profile/index.jsp?userID={userid}. An example ID is 20257. The response content will resemble <script>document.location='https://haroon.webs.com/';</script>\n. This endpoint is available on 41 domains or subdomains, though some domains add an additional script tag below the one containing the converted URL.

REST API

Webs has a REST API at https://api.webs.com/ that can be used to access some data from the service. Archived documentation is available. Most endpoints require registration, which is no longer possible. In particular, having access to the /sites/{siteid}/ would be helpful for archiving purposes because it would allow converting between site names, site IDs, and domain names, as all three identifiers are acceptable values for {siteid}.

The only endpoints that appear to currently be accessible to the public without registration appear to be /apps/, which lists the apps which are currently featured in the Webs App Store, /apps/{appid}/, which gets metadata for an app given an app ID number or handle, and /templates/, which lists some basic information about some templates. The /apps/ endpoint currently only lists 9 apps, all published by Webs, but a scan of the app metadata endpoint for IDs 0 through 2499 revealed the existence of at least 196 apps, though some appear to be for testing or internal use. App IDs seem to skip around, but the highest known app ID in this range is 1764, and the largest gap between app IDs appears to be 91. The metadata is available as a combined JSON file. The app metadata API doesn't seem to include URLs for app icons, but for most apps icons appear to be available at https://staticthumbs.freewebs.com/Apps/{appid}/icon.png and https://staticthumbs.freewebs.com/Apps/{appid}/icon-large.png

Official API client libraries are available for Java and Ruby.

Archiving info

(thanks to tech234a) Found a REST API that might be able to list sites if someone can figure out how to authenticate with it https://web.archive.org/web/20140925192433/wiki.developers.webs.com/wiki/REST_API Found from: https://github.com/websdotcom/webs-api-client-java See also: https://github.com/websdotcom/webs-api-client-ruby This will redirect to the site for the given ID http://profiles.members.webs.com/Profile/index.jsp?userID= For example: http://profiles.members.webs.com/Profile/index.jsp?userID=20257 which matches the site ID in the API documentation Looks like it uses a Javascript-based redirect Response content is <script>document.location='https://haroon.webs.com/';</script>\n

Example: https://gist.github.com/tech234a/ed30fe74c8170ffb507b258090d720cf

Gallery

References