Free Web space

The cheapest and easiest way to get your site online is using some free web space.

There are two main sources of free web space. Firstly, your ISP will probably allocate you some space on their servers. The exact amount varies but is usually between 10-20MB, plenty for most sites (for example, the whole of code-warrior is only around 5MB).

Check with your ISP to find out how much space you get and how to use it. You'll probably need to use FTP to send files to your server, which we'll look at later in this part of Sitebuilder.

The address of your free web space. will vary between ISP's but is usually made up of your username and the ISP address, for example www.user.isp.co.uk. It's unlikely that you'll see any advertising added to your site by the ISP.

AOL

if you are using AOL then you can FTP directly without any additional software using AOL Keyword: FTP.
Your web space is in the form of http://members.aol.com/screenname
AOL also provide an easy to use web building service called hometown.

External Providers

The second source of free web space. are the dedicated web space. providers. The most common are Geocities (a division of Yahoo) and Tripod (a division of Lycos). Again, you'll be allocated a set amount of space on the server which you can access via FTP or a web interface.

An advantage of this type of web space. over that provided by your ISP is that because the company is dedicated to the business of web sites, they're likely to provide many more features normally in the form of CGI scripts and ready made tools. The ISP's often provide a very limited number of scripts - click here for details.

However, as the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. To make some money, these web space. providers place banner ads onto your pages either for themselves or other paying companies. Ads (especially those that pop-up in the new windows) are the most annoying part of the web, so they're best avoided.

For links to some web space. providers, click here.

Domain Names

One major drawback of using free web space. is that the address is sometimes complicated and unrelated to the topic of your site. The best alternative is to use a domain name, but these cost money (see next section).

A good compromise are redirect addresses. These give you a shorter address that you can use to redirect to your existing web space. However, many make you pay for the service through banner ads.

Also you could try a .tk domain. http://www.dot.tk They are free based on you receiving traffic.