Carry out a search for free websites , and there are many options to access. I took a number of them for a test drive. Having tested them, it became evident that free sites are never ideal, but for the purposes of non-commercial home sites, they do serve a purpose.
If you want some web space to upload a few photos, place some info about your family to assist with keeping in touch with family and friends, it really is irrespective which one you choose.
For those of you wanting to use free web sites to earn some money from the internet, it is important to be a little bit more discerning. Most free websites come ad supported, so it is important to take some time deciding which one to use.
If, for example, you want to run Google AdSense scripts, it would not be prudent to choose a free site that displays Google AdSense in the template. Your own Google ads are likely to disappear in the clutter.
Pop-up ads can be very intrusive, and most traffic exchanges will not allow more than one pop-up. As you will probably not be aware of how many pop-ups will appear once you have your free site done, it would be a good idea to place a little bit of text on your new free website and then view it in a new window after publishing. If there are too many pop-ups , you can stop using it and you have not wasted a lot of work on a site you will not be able use.
Other sites will not provide html editors. This is a problem for most marketers who would like to display banners, scripts and text links.
So, within all these options, here are some of the ones tested for splash, squeeze and site pages.
Google Page Creator
This is free to obtain by signing up for a Google account and accessing the Labs section under more tools. I found it handy for splash pages, and squeeze pages. There is an html editor and you can create almost unlimited pages. It saves automatically as you work, so your content cannot be lost. The page layouts and themes are limited in selection, but functional. The text displays live in a bit of a fuzzy manner, so you will need to place all text in bold. The site is slow to work with in the editor mode and if you are running windows XP, seems to gobble up any spare ram, so you will have to be patient with these pages. The one huge advantage is that the pages are totally ad free.
Free Webs
The freewebs sites are not too bad at all. The editor is user friendly and the display is good. Major drawback is that most traffic exchanges will not accept freeweb websites.
50megs
This site is wonderful because you have a wide selection of excellent templates, can add and edit html and upload your own pages. There are lots of pages you can add. However, you cannot alter the html in the html manager,if you have built your site with their templates.After save, the templates revert to their original script.Another draw-back is the fact that these free sites are heavily ad supported with pop-ups and more....and are unsuitable for traffic exchanges. In addition to this, whilst you can upload files, the free version file size is quite small and zipped uploads are often rejected because of this limitation.
Brave Host
Maybe it is just me, but I have never yet been able to figure out how to use this site. I cannot seem to get anything up and running and support did not reply to my queries.
Zoomshare
Quite a nice site. They used to be totally ad free, but lately I see they will display their own Google ads across the top of the pages.They supply html editing. I found this site best to work with in tables, so you will need to be able to work like this if you want multiple columns and rows. The site is quite slow to work with when editing as they keep loading ads onto the workspace, but the final product is presentable. You are allowed 4 pages as a free user and can choose from a blog, links, photo album and home page formats.
All4webs
You can get a free page (single). They have small, unobtrusive banner ads that do not really detract from the page. The editor is easy to use, but I found some difficulty in lining up images and text within the tables. You can also become an affiliate of this site and get paid when free users who claim a page when referred by you upgrade to the paid version. Not a bad site for splash pages.
wet-paint
Very nice templates indeed. However, I could not locate any html editor, which is limiting. The pages are largely Google ad supported and you will be unable to add your own script. The owner of these sites must be making a packet from AdSense, which possibly explains why they are free to use.
Own-Free-Website
Displays the published version as a .tl rather than a .com but this has not been an issue with search engines or traffic exchanges. There is a text ad across the top of the page advertising own free websites, but this is the least unobtrusive I have found yet. This site has excellent facilities for managing add-ons, pages and sub-pages. This has to rate as the best freebie around. You can add unlimited pages and sub-pages. The templates are various and very professional looking. Add your own scripts, upload images and more. This was my most highly rated site. I would recommend you grab one today.
websites. ws
Free to trial for 7 days and then US$10 per month. I cancelled after my first 7 days, and not without some difficulty. There was no way to tell them I did not want the site when the trial period ended, other than calling them by telephone. Calling long-distance at some unearthly hour of the day , was not amusing, and having to answer a whole lot of questions as to why I was cancelling was irritating and costing me money. I had a problem with the site in that they are unclear as to how to use the editor facility and when I saved and exited, I lost all my data (twice). I am not a total idiot on the internet, and obviously missed something when I tried to use this site. Newbies will not want to go there! No doubt all the GDI loyalists will be after me in full baying cry - but so sorry..I did not enjoy the experience.
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