sorta OT...but....

dk_40207 · #1 05/13/06, 04:30 PM

I need folks advice who have websites. We are pretty much ready to get a farm website, but are boggled by all of the choices and "fees".

There are a lot of "free" ones, but we don't know if there are hidden fees, or lots of pop-ups etc.

We would love a free one for now

, but aren't opposed to a low fee one if it is good and easy. So who do you use, what is the cost, can you set it up, or do you have to really know computers, etc, etc?

I apologize for this non-goaty subject, but so many of you have websites, I just thought...maybe...

Thanks!
Christina in Indiana

Pie in the Sky Farm ~website hopefully coming soon!~

TexCountryWoman · #2 05/13/06, 05:10 PM

Christina, this is a great topic as i am in the same boat you are. I have no advice unfortunately! I, too, am hoping to find out from folks about setting up a farm website. My little goat business will recieve a much needed shot in the arm. We are located in a fairly remote area of texas and it will be a bit easier to make sales if folks can see our stock prior to making the drive out. Hopefully, someone will come along and inform us!

midkiffsjoy · #3 05/13/06, 05:16 PM

I love my geocities site. It was really easy to set up and is free. when I get everything the way I want I'll upgrade to no adds and such but since I cant afford someone to build one for me this was the best for us. Good Luck.

Hey Diane!!! It'd be wonderful for you guys to have a website so we could get a look at your cute pups!!!! grin.

**mygoat** · #4 05/13/06, 09:59 PM

Check out my website....
www.freewebs.com/mygoats/
Now imagine it being free! My whole website is FREE, and it's really easy to use!! The video page is kinda separate, as I have to have a different video hosting place upload my videos and then insert them as html code, but that's a different story... Everything else is easy stuff, even pics. No charge whatsoever. I love my website!
Go to www.freewebs.com and you can sign up for the service for free... You can pay more for extra stuff but everything I Have on there is free, and you can work around thier picture # restrictions (you can have I believe up to like 50 pictures/files uploaded, so it really isn't usually a problem... ) by using HTML code. PM me if you want to learn html code, btw. I'm not an expert but I can hook you up with some easy links to good websites.

Ramblin Acres · #5 05/13/06, 10:05 PM

I second freeweb.com I also have them too.I have been working on my site since last november(I would of have it done more but I have darn dial up that is so slow).I upgraded and just paid $20 or $30 for 2 years for my own domain.you can visit my site at http://www.ramblinacres.com

Like Dona said freeweb is very easy to use(I am very computer illiterate).

dosthouhavemilk · #6 05/14/06, 08:17 AM

I've got a couple of Freewebs sites and a couple more in the works.
There is an even simpler way to get around the photo restrictions on Freewebs (I did run into a problem, but we have over 50 head of goats, not to mention the dairy cattle and cats).
Since you ought to have a Photobucket.com account anyways

to quickly and easily share your pictures here you just right click on the little picture (or the larger picture) and copy, then paste into the paragraph editor on Freewebs.

A good example of what size that gives you if you use the thumbnail picture you can check out this page;
http://www.freewebs.com/morningmisth...inecherubs.htm
The nice thing is it is hosted online already and it doesn't take away from your monthly allowed bandwidth, I believe. The larger pictures do take up space and everytime someone looks at your site it takes away bandwidth. I found that out when I first started out. All of a sudden I couldn't access my site on-line and neither could anyone else. I had asked people to view it and it had huge pictures on it and it sucked up all my bandwidth for the month.
So I erased the big pictures, resized in Paint, put them back up and it wasn't an issue. Now I just use Photobucket because it uploads pictures more quickly than Freewebs anyways.

Shazza · #7 05/14/06, 08:32 AM

Our internet provider is Bigpond/Telstra, which we pay monthly for our internet access and which we get a 15mb website space...which is HUGE. So I downloaded for a free trial the "CUTE sitebuilder" which is soooo easy to use and is quite fun building and adding piccies etc....when our trial finished I bought the program for $69 US....no ftp program needed it uploads to the web address for you, cos I too am puter illiterate.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/rosnasharn

dk_40207 · #8 05/15/06, 06:42 AM

Nice snowball Shazza!! Jealous...we didn't get a "snowball snow" this winter.

Christina

Thanks for all of the advice!

Shazza · #9 05/15/06, 06:54 AM

Its just enough snow for us, to have fun in for the day......I have seen what some of y'll have to put up with in the different parts of the U.S, on here....and brrrrrr not my cuppa tea. Hope you get your site up and running soon, cant wait to see it. I went and looked at Ramblin acres...beautiful horses, lots of lovely pics, great website.

Key · #10 05/15/06, 02:02 PM

I made a simple website one night on a whim on Yahoo's geocities. It is free and contains plenty of room for the 2-3 dozen animals I sell each year. Check it out if you'd like.... www.geocities.com/lilshakyfarms Have fun with this process-you'll be glad you did it! I bet I sell over half of my animals via the website.

wooly1s · #11 05/16/06, 12:20 AM

We've got a free one on Bizhosting...lots of annoying banners and popups, but lots of people have blockers...I like their web-building tools. Will upgrade if I ever make a profit on this farm (LOL) Did use this service for my business and had the upgrades. No complaints about service.
http://www.PromisedLandFamilyFarm.com
Best of luck to you! You'll be on top of the world when you get your first page published...a year from now you'll probably have dozens!