In my last post, I promised to review the free Web site offerings that I have tried out. Since I tried several services, I will break it up into two posts. This time I’ll evaluate http://www.freewebs.com/ and http://www.tripod.com/ free web-site builders. Next time, I’ll give feedback on the web-builder offered at http://www.ezchristianhosting.com/ and http://business.blinkweb.com/.

My criteria for judging the free services are pretty simple.

  • How easy is it to use?
  • How intrusive are the inevitable ads that will appear on the site?
  • Is there an opportunity to upgrade to a paid version with more features and no ads?

Freewebs: I set up a site for my music club using this one.

http://www.freewebs.philharmonicmusicguild.com/

I like the quality and variety of designs that are available. However, I wanted to put a table on the schedule page, and I couldn’t immediately figure out how to do it. That’s why the schedule is basically paragraph text. The ads are not intrusive at all, so I give Freewebs high marks on this. They do offer upgrade options that remove the ads as low as $4.16 a month or $49.95 a year.

Tripod: Ads, ads, ads. Take a look at my free site at http://emilyakin.tripod.com/. Then, go to http://www.tripod.com/, get a username and password (which also works for Lycos webmail), and try it out. The upgrades begin at $4.95 a month with a $10 setup fee. All upgrades will remove the ads from the page, which is, I think, extremely distracting. Once you have you’ve set up your account, you can experiment with the web-builder and browse the various offerings.

Disclaimer: If you sign up for the free version of these services, you will be able to play around with the web-builder and the designs at no cost. When you begin to look at upgrading, though, please read all the fine print. Sometimes, to get the lowest cost, you have to pay for a full year in one payment. Neither of the services above asks for credit card information. Also, if you are on dial-up Internet service, you’ll find it hard to use the web-builders because it will take a long time for the page to load each time you update and save your work.

More in the next post. Meanwhile, I invite you to comment or subscribe.