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Building a Web Site for Free
By Paul Chamberlain
August 3, 2002
It seems a person can find absolutely anything on the Internet. From recipes to online shopping malls, it seems anyone has the ability to build a web site. Maybe you would like to set up a page for your home business or your family, but you think it is far too complicated. Many people believe it costs a fortune to own and operate a site and this is not true at all. In fact, it can be incredibly easy and even free.
Anyone who has an Internet connection has the potential to build a web site. It's surprisingly easy to build something like an online photo album for friends and family to look at. Access and freedom to all sorts of information is what makes the Internet such a fantastic tool. It is not restricted to large companies alone as once was the case eight to ten years ago. Everyone has the opportunity to make their presence known across the globe and there are many services that help you to do this.
There are probably hundreds of free web page servers available for public use. With this in mind, it may be difficult for someone to determine the difference between them, and which one they should use. Quite frankly, most free web site servers are relatively the same. Usually the only differences that exist are how much space they give you to post images and text, the builders used to modify your site and the address you have to type in to access the page.
Often, the larger space a web server will provide usually means the more ads will be placed on your site. Advertisements are what allow these servers to offer free services. Some people don't mind having banners across their page, while others absolutely hate it. Unfortunately, if you want a free web page, the advertisements are usually mandatory. However, there are some sites that allow you to build a web page without any advertisements at all but usually you do not get a lot of space to work with. www.brinkster.com is such a server. It offers 30 megabytes of memory to build your page without those bothersome and often tacky advertisements. It is definitely an excellent resource if anyone is looking for a professional looking site.
Most web servers come with web page builders. These are tools that allow you to assemble the format you want your pages to look like. It is a good idea to make sure that a server offers some sort of builder, especially if you do not have a web page building program on your computer like Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage. Perhaps the easiest web builder I have come across is the one that geocities (www.geocities.com) uses. It is very straightforward and offers a lot of functions. For the most part, it consists of dragging and dropping images and text to assemble your page, so it is perfect for first time users as well as more experienced individuals.
If you use the Internet, you know how frustrating it can be to type in long addresses time and time again. Unfortunately, this is one area where free servers tend to fall short. Often you have to type in the name of your web site server before the name of your site (eg: www.geocities.com/paulspage ), and it can be difficult to remember the address. There is a service that actually allows someone to type in a shorter address to access your site. www.cjb.net is free and lets you reroute to your web page. So instead of www.geocities.com/paulspage you can type www.paulspage.cjb.com and open the same page. This is far easier to remember, and cjb.net also lets you put things like a guest book, hit counter and even a chat option on your page.
There is no shortage of free servers available on the Internet. But you have to decide on a few things before choosing one to set up your site. Do you want advertisements? How much space will you likely use? Is the address easy to remember? Depending on how your answers, there is a server out there that is most useful for you. So go put your family pictures online, and advertise your small business. Anyone can build a web site; it just takes a little time and creativity.
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