Free Website and Free Hosting, Honestly

Problem:

There are many offers online for "free" websites. But really, they'll charge you monthly for hosting or charge you for a domain. I guess it's not really free then, is it?

Solutions:

I know of several ways to get a free website that is also live on the internet, hosted for free. I will show you three of these methods in this article. There is no catch, no money involved, no nothing except for a free website and a free host. You might not get your own domain for free using these methods but in another article I show you how get your own website, domain, and hosting for less than $1 per month.

Solution 1: Dropbox Public Folder

If you want to build your own multi-page website from the ground up, using a simple text editor or web authoring/web development/web design software (this article will be written shortly), use Dropbox to host your website for free. Here's how:

When you install Dropbox onto your computer, it comes with a public folder. Anything you put in there can be searched on the Web, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files! Open the Dropbox folder and right click a file to get the URL's of your files.

Pros:

• You get your files hosted absolutely free (if you are within your Dropbox storage limit.)
• You have full control over all the web pages, directories, stylesheets, and client-side scripts.
• Your web design/development tools aren't limited to a site-builder or style template.

Cons:

• You don't get to use a site-builder or style template (yes this can be both a pro and con.)
• You have to use Dropbox's domain for all your site's pages.
• Your URL is a scrambled mess.
• You have no server access except to upload/download your files (this means no server-side scripts, databases, etc...)

Solution 2: Google Sites

If you want to build your own site but don't know anything about HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, get a Google site. By default, you will be using Google's domain but can customize the URL to something like: sites.google.com/sites/WHATEVER

If you want to use your own domain for your Google site, you can. If you don't already have your own domain you will likely have to pay somebody to register your domain. (You might be able to register a domain with GoDaddy for somewhere around $10 per year. Prices can be higher though, depending on what domain you choose.)

Pros:

• You can get a free multiple-page website hosted for free.
• You can build a site with absolutely no skills with the site editor.
• You can edit HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Google's tools (but probably not directly, I haven't tried though.)
• Your URL is not a scrambled mess even if you're using Google's domain.

Cons:

• You might not have access to your own HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files (If you can access your files, it might be tricky to get them to work since you're stuck with Google's site building tools.)
• You're stuck with Google's domain unless you pay somebody to register your own.
• You have no real server control.

Solution 3: Blogger

You can turn a free blog into a free website with a custom URL using Blogger. Just create a blog and edit the Blogger XML template (this article will be written shortly). You'll have to use the XML file as your home page HTML file and you'll have to edit CSS a bit to get a completely clean fresh blank page to start out with, but you'll have full control over your single-page website (except much server access). As mentioned earlier in this article, you can possibly get your very own custom domain through Blogger for less than $1 per year.

Pros

• You get free hosting for a single page website
• You can customize the URL.
• You can add your own HTML, CSS, and JavaScript manually.
• You can edit CSS with the Blogger Template Designer's last advanced setting.

Cons

• You only get one file hosted by Blogger: the XML file.
• You are stuck with blogspot as your domain unless you pay for a custom domain.
• You have only extremely limited access to server settings.