Updated 3 Feb 01 (on Sympatico), and 6 Feb 01 4:45 am (on TerraShare.com).
On this page I set out the process by which I chose a free Web host service (terrashare.com) to which I could migrate my original site (at Sympatico.ca) provided by my Internet Service Provider, Sympatico-Bell. My reasons for migrating were twofold: (a) primarily to obtain more storage space (50 or 75 MB instead of 5 MB) for my site, and (b) to obtain more visibility of, and access to, my site and my ideas (by search engines, etc.). An added bonus is that I might reap some revenue from TerraShare! I also liked their philosophy of having gurus and a directory-based knowledge network in addition to the usual Web access.
Go Home .
Choosing a host for your Web site.
The following sets out the process of my search for a new, free, host for my Web site, keeping in mind the main goals listed above in the preamble. An additional goal was that I am not particularly attracted to having too much advertising on my site, nor to too many fancy flashing and spinning icons and banners. Call me boring if you like! I hope that this information and the links will prove useful to you. Bear in mind that there are very many potential hosts (hundreds), and that their services change (usually for the better) under competition.
Here are some useful links and some extracts (in maroon) from them. My text is in black. Let the search begin!
Free Web Pages and Free Web Hosting http://www.OnlineBusiness.com/shops/_internet_services/BEST_free_web_pages.shtml Carefully read the terms of service before you decide which free hosting service to use since many do not allow any type of commercial pages, and some make it quite clear that they can and will delete your pages at the drop of a hat. Some are also granted non-revocable rights to anything you upload to their servers. A free web hosting service is not a replacement for a real web hosting service. If you plan on doing business online, cough up a few bucks, register a domain name, and get a virtual server...you won't be sorry.
Our Web Hosting Comparison Page ( find a good deal quickly. http://www.onlinebusiness.com/OnlineBusiness/webHosts.shtml ) can help you
Geocities Free Web Pages and
Free Email
Yahoo! GeoCities -
Your Home on the WebŪ: http://geocities.yahoo.com/home/ Geocities offers
free web hosting , free email accounts, 15 mb
of space, but more for a fee. One of the
busiest servers on the Net. Very reliable. You must put the
Geoguide -- which includes a banner ad -- at the top of each page
or a pop-up ad will appear as each page is viewed.
Building your web site: Several ways to create and publish your site: Yahoo! PageWizards for beginners; File Manager and Advanced HTML Editor for more advanced users. In-between: Yahoo! PageBuilder-- our flexible and powerful drag & drop editor.
Promoting your site: Add your site to our Member Pages directory. Your site will be listed for millions to see .
Moving your site to Yahoo! GeoCities: Already have a site? Yahoo! GeoCities has a dedicated FTP server for you to upload your files, and our own EZ Upload that makes moving files from your computer to your site a snap. If you prefer using your own tools you can do that too. We even support Microsoft FrontPage 2000.
Example site?: BIRDMAN'S NEST: http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/6253/
Virtual Avenue
VirtualAvenue Home: http://www.virtualave.net/index.gsp This free web
hosting service is one of the few designed for the business
community. 20 mb of space. Allows cgi
scripts and SSI. Offers domain name hosting free,
and free sub-domains. Supports Front Page. Problem: annoying pop-up
ads. 50MB space,
CGI access, Account management utility, Unlimited email
forwarding, 24/7 technical support, Domain registration, Domain
transfer, Unlimited traffic, True FTP account, FrontPage
2000 Extensions. Is
it 20 MB or 50 MB?
Angelfire
Free Web Pages
Angelfire Free Homepages: http://angelfire.lycos.com/ Angelfire offers 30mb
of space for your free web pages, free email accounts. There
is an easy to use web page editor, or you can write HTML code and
upload it. This is perhaps the most straightforward and easy to
use file manager.
Angelfire is owned by Lycos, Inc., ( http://uscorp.terralycos.com/index.html ) and is a part of the Lycos Network ( http://www.lycos.com/info/network.html ) of sites, including: Lycos.com, Tripod, Angelfire, WhoWhere, Lycos Mail, HotBot, HotWired, Wired News, Webmonkey, Sonique, Quote.com, Gamesville.com and Matchmaker.com.
Personalized URLs! Has Lycos PhotoCenter: http://photos.lycos.com/Photocenter/
Go Network Free Web Pages
GO.com - Free Home
Pages: http://homepages.go.com/ I
liked this virtual community and found it very easy to register
and set up a home page. Free email. "unlimited
homepages," which I take to mean there is no limit
on disk space.
Create your Web Site in minutes with Basic
Builder, Photo Album Builder, or write
your HTML with Custom HTML Builder. Edit your
Web Site in minutes with Basic Builder, Photo Album
Builder, or write your HTML with Custom HTML Builder. Promote
your Home Page on the Web. How? Upload new files and images from your
computer to your Home Directory.
Example site: a day with me (Elisabeth Freeman): http://homepages.go.com/~bethfreeman/
Xoom.com
To bring you better service, we have integrated XOOM.com,
Snap.com, and other NBCi
properties into one new site, NBCi.com.
NBCi - Home: http://home.nbci.com/ Xoom.com offers unlimited free web space for hosting your personal web pages.
They make it easy to create pages even if you do not know html.
Free email accounts. Upload existing pages and images or
create a new site. Get more visitors --submit your site
to our directory. NBCi Page Builder enables
anyone - novice or professional, to create and publish
professional quality websites without the need for any design or
programming skills. You can have a website with stunning
graphics, quality customized photos and dynamic functions. It's
so simple to use. YOU can create your own great looking site - in
minutes! Place an NBCi Search Box on your Web
site so your visitors can find what they need!
Unlimited
free Web space. What does unlimited Web space really mean? (a)
NBCi requires that your Personal Web Page
display the NBCiBar. The NBCiBar is a distinct
and separate file from your Personal Web Page and does not
interfere with the HTML on your Personal Web Page. NBCi provides
you with unlimited web space for your Personal Web Page solely
for hypertext markup language (html) and associated files,
intended solely for the audio/visual presentation of your
Personal Web Page. Each such file associated with your Personal
Web Page may be no larger than 11 megabytes. b) Within the Media
Sharehouse, registered NBCi members get 500 megabytes of storage
space split between the public and private storage areas. You may
post MP3 files of copyrighted music on the Media Sharehouse, or
copyrighted photographs, text, video or artwork on the Storage
Services, only if you own the underlying copyright or have
express authorization . . .
Example site: Bigstep.com Foot Nurse NBC Internet, Inc: http://www.bigstep.com/foyer/showcase/example/footnurse.jhtml;$sessionid$L5EI3XYAAAUOFWGIHUWHBMWYZA4S1PX0
FortuneCity
FortuneCity - free web page hosting: http://www.fortunecity.com/ Fortune City offers 100 mb of space for your free web
pages, free email, free web hosting. Build a free
web page using our easy Site Building Tools. Upload
your site files using our File Manager or FTP Server. Submit your
web site to 110
search engines -- FREE -- with SubmitPlus. Download the easy-to-use Trellix
Offline Web Site Builder. Name your own short URL! Interact
with your site's visitors. Register for online site-building and
tech courses.
Example site: The Globular Cluster Page: http://members.fortunecity.com/msr_manos/
Talk City
====> The page
cannot be displayed. Talk City offers 3mb of free space. Known for its chat
rooms so the atmosphere is very social. Homepage creation is
more limited here than at some of the other free homepage
communities. Reject.
WebSpawner
Free web pages created in minutes - Webspawner: http://www.webspawner.com/ Very easy to use free web page
generator, though very
limited. Doesn't
appear to be a limit on the web space. Reject.
WEB4Free Free Web Hosting
====> The page
cannot be displayed. WEB4Free offers 10mb of disk space. 15 themed communities to
choose from. The price for free web pages with WEB4Free is the
placement of banners by WEB4Free at the top and bottom of your
pages and also the surrender
of your constitutional rights." Additionally, we
reserve the right to alter the presentation of your pages and
data, and alter the context in which they are displayed.
Including, but not limited to, the display of
advertisements". Please don't support these
people. Reject.
NetCitizen free web hosting and email
Net Citizen - Free Web Based Email and Free Web Site
Hosting: http://netcitizen.com/ Free web hosting for personal use up to
20mb. Free email. Upon registering, you give them the right
to disclose to third parties certain information about you. ftp
uploading and online HTML editor. Could not find instructions re
Web site. Reject.
BigBook
====> The page
cannot be displayed. This is more of a free business listing, but it is free
and is available for all businesses. Reject.
Tripod
Tripod: http://www.tripod.lycos.com/ Tripod recently informed me that they
will require that all
homepages be updated at least once a month or your account will be canceled! I can no longer recommend Tripod
to anyone, and I
suggest you move if you already have pages here. 50
MB of free space. Tripod Site Builder,
already the easiest way to build a multi-page web site online.
Dozens of new designs, improved handling of photos and other cool
enhancements -- all without knowing HTML.
Bran Promotions' Free Web Pages
Bran Promotions' Free Web Pages: http://www.bran.demon.co.uk/freepages/ 100k of free web hosting, personal use only. Banners will appear on your page and you must
create the pages, then submit
them via email and wait for them to be setup. Reject!
Inc
===> IMPORTANT
NOTICE: We've
partnered with WebsiteforFREE.com to upgrade your
"Create-a-Site." Click here to edit and manage your site. Nothing for the newcomer! Instructions are totally
deficient!
This is more like a yellow
pages listing than a web
page...you cannot even
include links to other web
pages. There is a step-by-step sign-up and a 10 step process for
page creation! Reject! If
you wear a suit and want to put up a free page for your business,
this site's for you.
Page HowdyNeighbor HowdyNeighbor.Com - Free
Personal Web Neighborhood: http://www.howdyneighbor.com/
HowdyNeighbor is not accepting new members. Or is it? Instructions
are totally deficient! Reject!
The following is a very thorough source of info and feedback.
100 Best Free Web Space Services: http://100best-free-web-space.com/ This is a very comprehensive site, with review commentary, and ratings in categories, including the following: Judge's Choice: (Listed by rating), 100 Best Overall: (Listed alphabetically), TOP 10 Free Hosts: (Overall, For Beginners, For Business, By Shortest Domain, By Banner Treatment, By Web Space), Top 10 Paid Hosts.
Here are the top ten, listed in order: BigStep, Terrashare, 20m, Doteasy, Excelland, Fws1, Bizland.
I also examined the following, in the category Top 10 by Most Web Space: TopCities, spaceports, Net Colony, Fortune City, Microworld, and several others.
I reviewed the following, from the Top 10 For Beginners: Homestead, Geocities, Tripod, FortuneCity, and TerraShare.
> Reviews>TerraShare
Sites Allowed: Personal
or business
Your Address: www.yourname.Terrashare.com
Web Space: 25mb (+
50 more, via FreeDrive, as I noted when registering!)
Banner Ad: Top banner (and bottom, usually -- not very big.)
Upload Method: Browser or FTP
Extras: Forums, Web tips, Income potential
Strengths: Easy money, Easy templates
Weaknesses:
Recommendation: Instead of just offering free web
space, TerraShare is
pioneering a new genre of free web hosting which actually pays
YOU for the privilege of hosting your home page! You earn money for your page views as
well getting paid for your banner income. In addition you can get
as much as $1 for each site you refer to the TerraShare program,
plus a cut from the traffic generated by the referral sites. Even
without the income potential, TerraShare provides a pretty solid
array of free hosting services. 25mb is a hefty space offering,
and they offer several methods of site construction from simple
templates requiring no HTML to standard FTP uploads. Their
sign-up process is short and simple and their instruction is
clean and intuitive. It looks good to us.
Let us visit TerraShare via the reviewer-provided click. Here is what we got (on 2 Feb 01, one day after I set up my site with TerraShare!):
"The link you clicked on has expired. It pointed to a web site that was a member of the Commission Junction Network and has since been deactivated or temporarily suspended. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Commission Junction is a pay-for-performance advertising company that enables consumers to buy anything, anywhere, anytime within the context of information that is of interest to them. For more information about Commission Junction, visit www.cj.com."
That didn't look very encouraging!
The TerraShare site
TerraShare.com: http://www.terrashare.com/ Build a Free Web Site and Get Paid , Get 50 MB of Free Web Space, Get the banner advertising revenue generated by your site, Get Paid for Every Hit.
About TerraShare: The TerraShare Knowledge Network helps millions of Web surfers each month find and publish highly useful Web content. TerraShare is guided by the belief that powerful economic incentives and a willingness to recognize members' efforts lays the groundwork for a new type of information resource focused on high-quality, member generated content. To accomplish this goal, TerraShare blends its free web hosting service with robust knowledge portals. These topic-specific portals are designed to incorporate the best online and offline practices for bringing people together and facilitating information exchange. At the center of each portal is a designated expert or Guru.
Example site: TerraShare Pacific Northwest Travel: http://www.terrashare.com/sub/community/travel/pacificnorthwest/index.html
Readers' opinions
From a reader: I've recently hosted my site at Terrashare.com (after reading about it first on your website "100best-free-web-space.com). The primary reason was because they pay you for the hits you generate. In the first week of having my site up i managed to get over 250,000 page views and not once did i notice any downtime with the site. I'm a fairly net-savvy user and had no problems with creating or updating my site. the html uploading tool is so straight forward that i don't even bother with any of the other options. You mention in your review that they only have top banners. they actually have top and bottom banners. I've yet to receive my cheque from Terrashare (and they say in the fine print that it could be up to 6 weeks before they send it) so I can't comment on their payment reliability. Certainly, if it wasn't for the money option I would probably be hosting my site somewhere else (so I can control which ads i place on the site). Thanks for the info on your site. From: Scott Etherington. Sent: Sat., Dec 23, 2000
From a reader: TerraShare. I've tried about 20 of your recommended sites for beginners, and none is any good, they're all far from being usable by beginners. But TerraShare is so bad it got me into a vicious circle within only five minutes of my starting to try building a website. Following their onscreen instructions I was led in a circle from one thing to another and then back again to the starting point without achieving anything. From: Eric Zuesse [mailto:cettel@shoreham.net] Sent: Sat., December 02.
From a reader: I have been using Tripod for a year, and had few problems, but my File Manager is now defunct to the point I cannot get into my files to edit, delete or rename. I have used the feedback form for 5 days seeking help or some explanation of what is wrong, but nobody bothered to get back to me. I have read elsewhere on the net that shoddy customer was common with Tripod, and after 5 days, I have to agree. Due to their lack of helping me and not giving me the common courtesy of a response, I have purchased a domain at Doteasy and will be moving my site soon. You should warn others of this shoddy service on Tripod's part. However, thanks to you folks I found Doteasy and will have a banner free domain.
From a reader: Tripod correction to review sent few days ago Name of host: Tripod Sites Allowed: Personal web pages User Address: www.tripod.com Web Space: 50 megs Banner Ad: inline or popup Upload Method: Browser and FTP Extras: Library of photos and clip art, page stats, Messenger Strengths: VERY FAST, minimal banner hindrance. Weaknesses: Slow Support Recommendation: A few days ago my account from Tripod was deleted expressing I had adult content on the site. I DID NOT HAVE THIS and was rightfully fumed. Today, the tech support returned my email apologizing for their mistake, expressing that it must have been an error on their part. I was very happy with the service until then, and now that they have made things right, will likely go back. From: bryan_49ers [mailto:bryan_49ers@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, December 18, 2000
From a reader: Tripod.com was the most reliable host I could find, I made great use of it for a month, but they deleted my account for no reason, refused to return my emails, and have completely ruined any good things I have to say for them. I know I didn't break any of their rules, but if you are looking for a host THIS IS NOT IT.
From a reader: No marks for Fortunecity. Over the last 3 years I have had so much trouble with F/City. Can't upload some times for over 5 weeks. Counters don't work. They don't ever tell you they are having trouble. They took messages boards down so we could not voice our concerns. They took the Ministers away, for the same reasons. They now have not midi working and that has been for 3 weeks that I know. I tried to fix the problem and spent hours playing around with it. When I finally gave up and wrote to them they said they were having problems. They don't ever tell you they are having problems. I have spent hour trying to fix things that they know are not working. You can only load up 1 file at a time. Even though it says you can load 10 or so. today they ahve placed their logo on my web rings and pictures that link to other sites off my page. It is the pits and I will moving out next year. My rating would be -50. You could believe how much trouble this site has caused me. Site is always crashing and you lose files in the process. Files are not in order. More space has come at a cost and not worth the trouble of moving in. I have so much more to write but it always the same things. From: Angel of Oz [mailto:angelofoz@optushome.com.au] Sent: Saturday, Dec., 23, 2000.
From a reader: I was recently with xoom.com. However, since the merge with nbci, I've had nothing but problems. . . .
From a reader: You gave Geocities 5 stars, but I have to strongly disagree. Their methods of advertisement are absolutely deplorable! I've been building various websites since I was 12 years old.* I'm 17 years old now, and in my quest to find the "perfect" host, I have yet to find one who's advertisement tactics are as overbearing as Geocities. But on a more cheery note, your website has definately helped me out in narrowing down my choices! What a useful site! -- Crystal
*In contrast, yours truly has been building them (all two of them!) since I was just a young lad of 63!
From a reader: Homestead.com - I am a Science teacher (K12) residing in Singapore. Currently, I'm designing a cyber classroom for teaching and learning. After searching for a web host to put up my web pages, I finally found homestead.com One word to sum up my experience so far: Fantastic! . . .
My choice: TerraShare
Based on the above reviews, I chose to duplicate my site from Sympatico onto TerraShare. As I already had an operational site at Sympatico, I decided to use the ". . . painless Site Copy Tool. It's the quick way to move your files to TerraShare . . . ". That did not work out for me, as neither my Web-authoring tool (Front Page Express) nor my first site (Sympatico) had their own FTP capabaility. (In building my previous site, I had used the FTP package WS_FTPLE (downloaded from Tucows).) Nor could I get WS_FTPLE to work for uploading to TerraShare, perhaps because I did not know how to properly set the TerraShare FTP address. So, I resorted to the Upload feature of TerrsShare to upload each of my files (about 40 of them) individually from my local hard drive to my new directory at TerraShare. That was easier than it sounds, thanks to the Browse feature of pointing to my old files, and uploading groups of files.
So, in very little time I was up and running at my new site at TerraShare. As a result, I now (3 Feb 01) have two sites operating, each occupying 2.5 MB, and identical in content (except for the advertising!). Recall that my limit at Sympatico is 5 MB. So far, I have not found the advertising to be too intrusive, limited as it has been, to one banner at the top and another at the bottom of each page.
Lesson learned:
I add a note re file maintenance that may be of help to the new user. After I was up and running alright at TerraShare, I decided to modify a page on my local drive and to upload it to replace the same one at TerraShare. Although the upload (using the TerraShare Upload facility) seemed to work, the changed content did not get reflected in the new access to the Web site, even though I had deleted temporary files after the upload so that the new access to the site would proceed to the site itself, not just to the latest copy stored in my local cache -- a lesson that I had learned the hard way in building my first site at Sympatico. What to do? I tried to get my WS_FTPLE software to do the job, but failed. I then used another FTP facility from Microsoft, via TerraShare, but am not sure that I used it properly. It and its Microsoft Help system offer not a clue as to how to use it! In fact, I managed to delete my Index (Home page) file from my directory at TerraShare.Things were getting worse!
So I backed off and thought to myself: maybe less is better! I returned to the use of the TerraShare Upload facility, but this time I arranged it so that I uploaded, as a single group upload, not only the modified file, but the Index file, even though the latter had not been modified. It may or may not be of significance that I arranged it so that the Index file was to be the last of the two files to be uploaded, not the first. Eureka! Everything now worked alright! Live and learn!
Later, I modified this Host (filename) page again, uploaded it followed by the Index page (also modified), and deleted temporary files. In then accessing the Home page, I find that the changes are not reflected. I hit Refresh, but that did not help. I decided to wait for ten minutes, in case some time was needed for the update to take effect in a lower-priority mode on the TerrraShare server.That was to no avail. I then accessed the actual files in my directory at TerraShare, and found that they had been changed. I then accessed the Web site again, and again found that those changes were not reflected. Strange! Am I to conclude that my deletion of temporary files is not really complete? In other words, that my recent apparent accesses to the TerraShare site are no such thing, but instead accesses only to my local cache? Let me do some surfing on the Web to try to flush out the offending cache contents.
Go Home. Go to Build a Web site page. Go to How to launch your site onto the Web.
You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca