There are two methods to create a website, either install the site files at a web host (or at home), or use one of the many platforms for creating and hosting sites.
Platforms
The proposals of the latter are tempting, but the possibilities of these offers are often limited, with imposed advertising. For more complete services or without advertising, you have to pay and quite expensive (in any case, more expensive than traditional hosting). The objective is very clearly commercial and only aims to make you captive.
Indeed, once your site is created "for free", when you realize that it lacks essential functions or that the advertising is too present, it will be difficult to change the system.
However, the platforms respond to a need for simplicity and accessibility in the creation of a website or a blog, which conventional hosting does not meet, even with a CMS.
Only Google-Sites, Google Blogger and Blog.comee.com are completely free and without any advertising.
Google Sites
You want to create a personal, professional or association website, but you do not know PHP or HTML, and you have neither the time nor the desire to assimilate these languages, because for you the important thing is the content of the site, Google-Sites is made for you.
The only constraint, you must have a Google account, which is the case for users of Gmail messaging and a smartphone or tablet running Android.
In a few clicks, your dynamic site is created. All you have to do is devote yourself to its content.
Site Management
To access the site's dashboard, you must first connect to Google by clicking on the "i" icon in a circle, located at the bottom left of the page.
Then once connected to Google, click on the "pencil" icon in a circle, located at the bottom right of the page.
In this interface, there are three tabs on the right and a toolbar at the top.
The creation of a page is done in the "Pages" tab, by clicking on the "New page" icon.
Writing and editing pages is done like in a word processor.
The "Insert" tab allows you to insert many objects, such as an image, a document, a form, a map, a diary, a video, etc., and to choose the layout of the site.
The "Themes" tab offers six themes and different presentation options.
The "Parameters" option (cogwheel, in the toolbar at the top of the page) offers several configuration possibilities.
It is also possible to share the management of the site with several administrators or editors and to limit access to certain users.
Website address
The subdomain offered for free is not very simple, but for ten to twelve Euros per year, depending on the extension (.com or .com), you can have your personal domain name. See: https://domains.google
It's very affordable, with other platforms, when it's planned, you have to take the paid version, in addition to the domain name, which is much more expensive.
To link this domain name to a Google-Sites site: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/6069257
Getting Started Guide
For more information, see the getting started guide: https://support.google.com/sites#topic=7184580
Classic Google-sites
Since November 1, 2020, the creation of sites is no longer possible in classic sites. Newly generated websites are only available in the new version, classic websites must migrate to new version, before September 1, 2021.
Functions that cannot be converted are flagged before starting the conversion.
