The Definitive Guide to Choosing a Free Webhosting Service and Building Your Site
Jul 26 '01
The Bottom Line Read the Epinion
Millions of people now have websites, and why shouldn’t you be one of them. There are literally hundreds of sites out there that offer free webhosting for people who want to create a non-commercial Website. So the question arises, “How do I pick the one that is right for me and right for my visitors.”
This article will not only help you choose the Hosting service that is right for you but also how to setup your site so people will want to visit it.
Quick Lists
~Here are some of the better companies~
Geocities [www.geocities.com]– Easy to use and free HTML help for beginners
Freeyellow [www.freeyellow.com]– Great free service
Tripod [Yahoo now I believe, www.yahoo.com] – One downside is the floating banner
Homestead [www.homestead.com] – Small but good
~Some of the not so great hosting services~
Crossroads – Slow, deletes anything they are unsure of [even if its legal]
Xoom – Can you say Spam?
Fortune City – Huge [sometimes multiple] banners per page. Screwy upload service.
There are tons more, but the ones I listed above I have personally dealt with. Crossroads was actually a good service at first. They offered FTP access which barely any free service offered. They also offered unlimited space. Unfortunately they deleted my site and all the files 4 times. My site offered shareware and freeware files and they assumed it was pirated software since I stored “big” files. Even after explaining to them what it was they still deleted it 3 more times.
Geocities, Freeyellow, and Tripod are all standard services offering limited space, and web-based file uploads.
What do you need?
Most people want a site to display a hobby or maybe just a family based site with pictures and news. In this case the possibilities and choices are nearly endless. Just about any of the services I listed about can handle this type of site with ease.
If you are planning a site with just pictures and text the 3 sites I listed above are perfect. Pictures and text take up very little room and a service offering 2-5 megs is more than enough.
If you are planning to be like me and hosting large sized files than you will need to get one of the very few services that offers high storage space. These sites are few and far between and with sites like Crosswinds you get extremely slow speeds. Xoom is another unlimited space service, but with it comes 2-3 pieces of junk mail a day and they are even more paranoid than Crosswinds when it comes to what you are uploading and no matter how many e-mails you send them you will never get a response.
What’s the Catch?
The catch is simple, no matter what service you sign up for you will have to do something to “pay” for the site. Most services have banners that will display on every page or some sort of pop-up window that comes up every time a page is loaded.
These are small prices to pay in order to get your page out on the net. Sometimes however the banners or pop-ups can disrupt your site so you must choose wisely.
Yahoo [Tripod] has a rather annoying banner that “floats” on the page so even as you scroll it is always present on the top right hand corner. You can choose to shrink it down but it will always remain in the same spot. The thing that always bugs me about this type of banner is it gets in the way of the pages themselves. Many times I have gone to a Tripod page and had to move the banner because it was in the way of text or of a link.
Other sites such as Xoom and Fortune City I am convinced make their money by putting their banner on your pages and also by selling your e-mail address to anyone who wants it. I will sign up for a free e-mail address just before I sign up for a free site [or at least I used to] and I only used that address for signing up nothing else, yet I always get spam mail right away from all over the place because the hosting company sold me out.
Geocities is probably one of the less annoying [next to Freeyellow] since they only use a banner on each page [similar in size to the ones at the top of Epinions]. It stays where it is and doesn’t get in the way of your page and is either at the very top or bottom of the site. Sometimes it is only on the main page and not on every single page.
The Freebees
Most free hosting sites will offer you tons of free things in order to get you to signup. Things like HTML tools, E-mail, special scripts for guestbooks and the like, or just free services like redirect services [see below].
Most free services now offer HTML help for beginners and may even build the pages for you when you fill in the blanks. This is great for beginners, but for experienced web designers it is just way too basic. It also tends to make all the pages on the service look the same and most people I know like to be a little different.
Free scripts are another great addition to the free hosting market place. Everyone likes to keep track of how many people have seen the page so why not use a free counter. Or maybe you want to get some feedback on your page so why not use a free message board or a free guestbook. Take advantage of these freebees because without them you may not be able to add your own later. In order to make your own guestbook or messageboard you need access to CGI and 99.9999% of free services do not offer CGI access. There are sites however that will host your scripts for you or you can simply sign up for free counters or messegeboards. One of the best counters on the market is Extreme [www.extreme.com], these counters not only track how many people come to your site, but also where they come from. And if they use a search engine to find your site it will tell you what keywords they used. It also lists what country they are coming from. Very handy to find out where your traffic is coming from.
Most people will do the pages on their PC and upload them to the site either via FTP [File Transfer Protocol] or by using the web based interface provided by the hosting service. My personal favorite is FTP, but for beginner users the web-based service is fine. The only problem I have found with web-based uploading is the amount of errors you get and most times you can’t watch the progress. FTP is also a very rare thing to find on a free service.
Re-Direction services are extremely popular right now. Two of the major services are go.to and cjb.com. What these services do is change your long web address into something a bit shorter and easier to remember. My earliest web pages address was www.geocities.com/timessquare/dungeon/2700/index.htm , if I had a redirect service I could have made it go.to/something or cjb.something.com/ . Much better for remembering and for handing out to people.
The last service that is of major importance is the one that lists your site with major search engines. This is a very important process that some hosting companies will do for free. If not I still advise you go to Excite, Yahoo, Google and the such and do it yourself.
What Can I NOT Do?
Most free hosting services [99.9%] do not allow you to sell anything on your site. They also do not allow you to put pay banners anywhere on your page. So if you think you can make money quick think again.
They do not allow Pornography on the site. They claim its because porn sites suck up a lot of bandwidth, but personally I think its because they want to keep a wholesome family atmosphere to their service, which is fine.
NO illegal or pirated material including MP3s. I have tried this long ago, it didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now I’m sure. Back in my juvenile days I tried building a site with Warez on it and I paid for it by having the people I hosted with tell me they knew who I was and they were reporting me the FBI. Not fun for a 17 year old that doesn’t really know anything about the net.
No racist or bigoted crap, enough said.
Never Ever Ever put up anything on your site that is of a personal nature. Never put your phone number, address, full name etc. I wouldn’t even use my main e-mail address. Remember having a website is like putting an ad in the paper, anyone can see it. So don’t put anything on the page you wouldn’t feel comfortable telling a complete stranger.
Also be careful some sites have rules about having to log in at least once every few days. Fortune city will cancel accounts if there is no activity for 7 days. So try to log in and update at least once a week.
Be Creative
If you do decide to build a site be creative with it. Most free services now have contests for the most creative site. Try to do things that have never been done before. Use different colors to make the page look attractive. Use different fonts and backgrounds to make it look more eye appealing. Remember yellow text on a white background is a no no.
If you are new to web page building and you need help search around the web for sites. Lots of sites have some great scripts that will help you jazz up your page. One of my personal favorites is the Java Script Depository [www.javascripts.com] they have thousands of free scripts you can use on your page. There are hundreds if not thousands of other sites with free scripts or how-to guides all for free.
If your graphic making skills are not up to par you can check the web and actually get graphics built for free. When I was in Geocities some of my neighbors would design custom banners or buttons for free as long as you put up a link to their site somewhere on your page.
Backgrounds are another great way to add class your site and again most free hosting services have an archive of free backgrounds you can use. You can also visit Background Kingdom [www.backgrounds.com] and pick some out.
My Fingers Hurt
That’s it, pretty much everything I know about the subject [or pretty much all I feel like typing]. If I missed something I will add it later I am sure. If I did miss anything or you have questions free to e-mail me and ask [destinyschild8@yahoo.com].
No matter what have fun!
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Epinions.com ID:
Destinys-Child
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Location: Sagamore Beach Ma.
Reviews written: 128
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About Me:
A fool and his money were lucky to be together in the first place.
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