Deleyna's Drift

The beauty of the internet is that you can create a web presence for free.

Now, for the record, I don't recommend it. I have found that free servers often limit design and functionality. Some make their money by placing ads on your site. Imagine your site decorated with ads that draw your customers away to other sites! I've heard some horror stories, so I'm putting this information together in the hopes that you may avoid some of the worst ones. However, don't blame me if something goes wrong. These sites are options, but I'm not responsible for any of the experiences you may have with them. They are, however, the best options I've seen...and my experiences with them have been good.

(UPDATE: in the following paragraphs, I recommended Blogger over WordPress for a free blog site. I'm updating that recommendation. If you can only do a free site, check out both. WordPress may be a more stable platform. Blogger has been having some weird problems of late, especially with Internet Explorer. While I am no fan of IE, I do think you need a blog that is stable on all platforms. Blogger still does a good job, but check out WordPress as well.)

Google will one day rule the world. Gmail is one of the best technological inventions of our day. If you don't have a gmail address, get one. Forward all your mail to it. Wave goodbye to spam. Along with your Google account, comes Blogger and Google Sites. (You should also check out Google Documents if you are a writer. While this isn't the most fabulous word processing software, think off-site backup and you'll see the value.) Your domain name will be a sub-domain of the Google sites domain, so you won't have to buy a custom domain name unless you want one.

Blogger is great and allows you to customize your pages, however if you just want a blog, you might want to try Wordpress. They offer a subdomain that looks like: yourname.wordpress.com and will host your blog on their server. This blogging software offers more features than Google's, however they do charge extra for anything other than basic customization. Before paying for hosting on Wordpress, compare the rates for BlueHost, because once you start customizing the Wordpress site, you're quickly in to the same cost range as a full-powered site on BlueHost. If you are going to pay to customize Wordpress, I recommend you do it in the BlueHost environment where you can maximize your investment and take advantage of the additional space and power available on their servers.

I have worked on several free hosting servers. Some are very good, but I am hesitant to recommend any of them, simply because within about 5 minutes of starting to develop sites on them, I find myself wondering how we can get the site moved. Free hosting frequently means lots of advertising, some of which you may not be able to control. Free hosts limit space, bandwidth, functionality...the list goes on and on. If you must use a free server, understand that you are likely to experience some frustration as a result.

If you search for "free Joomla hosting" you'll find a number of sites that will set you up with a free Joomla site. Again, be careful. You may not have control over the version of the software. Since there are "bad guys" out there in the world who dedicate their lives to hacking and destroying web sites, you always want the latest and greatest version of Joomla -- since it will be the most secure. If the site won't let you upgrade your installation, think long and hard before trusting your valuable content to them.

Before you invest in advertising (especially anything printed like a business card) that uses a free server, be very sure you are happy with your site. Will having to re-print that advertising material be worth the money you may save on site hosting?

Another option would be to get a few friends together and purchase a BlueHost site to share. You can each host a domain on the site and only pay for the domain names -- $10 each. You could split the $6.95/month between you and you would then all get a chance to experience the power of a fully loaded server.