How to build a website for free? (Seriously!!!)
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In this post I will show you how to build a website with a free host and domain without even paying a dime. If I can not accomplished that at the end of the post, You can call me a liar (hehe). I am writing this post from my experience. I will try to explain single details and in easy terms. The amount of coding you will need, I will try to keep it as minimal as I can. If your are an intermediate user you can skip through the little details or this maybe old and obsolete information to you. The only catch about this is that, the domain you will get will not be a “.com”. It will be “co.cc” ( I will explain it later in the post. )Would you rather have alex.co.cc or alex.blogspot.com or alex.wordpress.com? If you want have your own website but you do not want to pay monthly because you maybe just need little space and bandwidth or maybe you have a website already and want a free domain for testing purpose, this method is for you.
First here is a demo of a free domain I set up for this tutorial
First Step
Three terms you have to know:
- Domain: Domain is like an address such as www.example.com. It is the address you would type to get to any website. “The main purpose of a domain name is to provide symbolic representations, i.e., recognizable names, to mostly numerically addressed Internet resources.” Read up more …. There are different types of domain addon domains, parked domains and sub domains. For this article we are going to use Addon domain.
- Web Host : In easy terms, web host allows to host your files online. You can access this file from anywhere . If you host your web files this can accessed by typing the domain adderss . Read up more…
- FTP: File transfer Protocol . Using a FTP software you will upload your web pages to the server. Download any of the free FTP from here .
Second Step
You will need to sign up for a account with a free web host service. The two free best web host:
- Byethost: Best Free web host. Up to 5GB space also allows Mysql Database (Important if you want install Wordpress,Drupal other softwares), Automatic Fantastico type installer.
- 110mb: Only disadvantage Mysql database is not free. If you have plain HTML pages then you will be okay.
For this tutorial, I am using Byethost. I would recommend that. When you sign up for the Byethost you should get an email with all the information you will need. They should look like this:
Save this information.
Now you need to sign up for a free domain here. There 60% chance that you will get the domain name you want. That’s what made me get a domain from co.cc. I could not get the the domain name I wanted in .com.
If you want your website to act like a real domain you have to set up the name server with co.cc or you can just use url forwarding which will hide the Byethost’s big url. It is easy to set up. For the name server you have wait 48 hours or less. Here is where you would choose how you want your site domain address to work:
Third Step
Before uploading any files lets set up the domain to make it work like a real domain. Log into your vistapanel and Go to Addon domain and enter the domain address you singed
Fourth Step
When you added the domain log in to your account using any FTP software. You should see a new folder added in your web space . That is where you will upload your files.
Now if you want to install wordpress use fatastico installer from vistapanel or if you want a pre-built CSS template download it from here and just change the content in a text editor and you will have your free website.
Hope this is helps someone building a free website. If you need any more help and a suggestions shout in the comment.
thank you very much for this article…
Thanks！ I build a free site successfully.
the first site’s sign up page is broken, so you can no longer sign up.
I have never had a problem with this but i know it is common. I wonder if this is common when it comes to cheap hosting or reseller hosting accounts.
thankyou.
Really good post
great article. Just what I’m looking for to have a play with one of my sites until I can decide on a permanent host for it
hmm reading through Byethosts TOS. not liking what i see … lots of contradictions and unfortunate fine print.
@Arun Kumar: Yes you can. You just have to add the domain to the direct it to the free hosting service Here is the link on how to add the domain. Read everything.
So Many Thanks !!
I have a query though, and would appreciate very much if I could get a solution.
Suppose I purchase a domain name http://www.mysitename.com, and then can i use bytehost.com free hosting service to host my webpages ? If yes please guide me How to do it.
Please email me or if an article is already published guide me there. Many many thanks .
very good thanks for sharing
sure ..np
Yes admin.
Where is the link for the template used on the demo?
You mean this one?
i didn’t know about co.cc, but it seems to charge for some cases when choosing a domain, i tried blogstar.co.cc and it said it would be $3, but hey that’s still not too bad i fact i might get me one.
Also i have in the past tried many of the most well known free hosters out there and i wanna throw in a good word for 000webhost.com they have most things you’d get from paid host and are reliable.
Great article yeah.
That’s definitely one way to do it. I’m not really sold on the idea of free hosting for most people, considering how cheap it is to host a site, but for some people it might be the best way to get their feet wet.
Are you serious? This is so cool. I have got to get around to this very soon. I’m going to tweet this to everybody I know as well, thanks DesiznTech.
I’m a writer in Africa, and I sure will put this to good use.
If you are looking for affordable and reliable UNIX hosting, you have come to the right place. HostKeeper offers the most affordable hosting with features such as MS FrontPage, CGI/Perl, MySQL, PHP and best of all, 24/7 customer service. Wether you are building a personal website or a professional website for your business, you will find what you need at HostKeeper.
CO.CC Rules!
Great tut for building a website for free. Thx!
If you are in US, you can get .com domain and free windows hosting from Microsoft.
Have a look on this.
http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/
Thanks
Thanks for sharing!
your welcome
helpful post thanks..
http://www.joyoge.com/story.php?title=how-to-build-a-website-for-free-seriously-1