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Google Sites for everyone

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

Thursday, May 22, 2008
16 years ago5,079 views

"Now we've made it easy for anyone to set up a website to share all types of information – team projects, company intranets, community groups, classrooms, clubs, family updates, you name it – in one place, for a few people, a group or the world. You can securely host your own website at http://sites.google.com/[your-website] and add as many pages as you like for free."

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-sites-now-open-to-everyone.html

and the official blog, launch yesterday, but I didn't realized at that time that this service was available for everyone:
http://googlesitesblog.blogspot.com/

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

"your own website at sites.google.com/[your-website]" (Google blog)
different than
"Your site will be located at:
http://sites.google.com/site/sites/[your-website] " (Google Sites registration page)

hebbet [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-4FRTzxkI

Ken Wong [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

i've made my site public("Anyone in the world may view this site"), but why people still need to login their Google account to view it?

Colin Colehour [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

The service isn't listed on the more page or the lab page. Google Health had that updated right away.

Ken Wong [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

>>i've made my site public("Anyone in the world may view this site"), but why people still need to login their Google account to view it?

now it's fixed, by itself.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

<< "your own website at sites.google.com/[your-website]" (Google blog)
different than
"Your site will be located at:
sites.google.com/site/sites/[your-website] " (Google Sites registration page) >>

Actually, when you create your site, it gets hosted at:

sites.google.com/site/[your-website]

e.g. http://sites.google.com/site/tonyruscoe/

So both examples are wrong! ;-)

oh [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I can put adsense code?

xujie [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

http://sites.google.com/site/cnbeta/

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xujie [PersonRank 5]

16 years ago #

http://lh5.ggpht.com/xujie8410/SDVBf88MkvI/AAAAAAAAEXg/zA7xnOgxR3c/s800/ECQ8Y%7EJOPKMTUTBPCCKB%7D62.jpg

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> I can put adsense code?

No, according to Google Sites Help Center:

"No, at the present time Google AdSense code can not be used with Google Sites."
http://www.google.com/support/sites/bin/answer.py?answer=90970&topic=14069

Inferno [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

https://www.google.com/a/UniversalLogin?

when I login a page comes up asking about which account should I use to login... Isn't this universal login thing new?

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Interesting. When did it show you that?

I've never seen that universal login page before. I guess they're reading your cookie to find out which accounts you've signed into. And it only lists the accounts which have the specified service activated.

For some reason clicking my Gmail account or "Choose another account" both take me to the same page with my Gmail username already completed.

Edit: Having just played with this, it even seems to include Google Apps accounts where you didn't select the " Remember me on this computer." option.

Inferno [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Yes same here... I guess they are unifying (like something) to the accounts of Google & Google Apps Domain. Like, in the future you may be able goto gmail.com to login to a Google App Mail account.

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Excerpt of my article on Zorgloob.com :
"
However, if you're looking for a real website, do not use Google Sites. SEO spammers, developers, you'll be disappointed:

   * Unable to place Adsense ads;
   * All external links are automatically replaced by redirection from http://www.google.com/url?q =;
   * The bandwidth very limited;
   * No database;
   * No feeds;
   * No categories (Google Apps only);
   * No animated GIF images;
   * Files limited to 10 MB;
   * Unable to upload web pages;
   * Unable to see on an unique page all the files of your site;
   * And the list continues... You should better use MySpace.
"
http://www.zorgloob.com/2008/05/google-sites-ex-jotspot-disponible-pour.asp

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]Tom:
Don't use the limitations from the initial phase of a product to make general assumptions. That's like saying: "don't use Google Presentations because you can't export your presentations as PPT" (that feature wasn't available at launch) or "Google Apps Engine sucks because it only supports Python". I'm sure you'll be able to place ads, you'll have feeds, an option to import/export pages, some integration with Google Apps Engine etc.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Is this on it's way to replacing Google Page Creator?

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Yes, but for now, Google Sites (and Apps Engine) should remain in "beta" and don't claim it's an useful service, because it's not. Not yet.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

TOMHTML, I think you're expecting too much from Google Sites. It's perfectly usable as it is and would suit most small groups' needs. If you've ever used Microsoft Sharepoint, you'll realise how similar it is (although it does lack some of the more advanced features, of course). Just because a service hasn't got the most features it could possibly have doesn't mean it should be in Beta.

Perhaps they should've stuck to "Google Wiki" as the name so that people didn't expect this to be a complete solution for hosting any type of website.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]Tony:

Maybe "Google Wiki" was rejected because people might think it would be similar to Wikipedia?

I thought their competition are wiki services like http://pbwiki.com/ and others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_farm), not advanced services like SharePoint.

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]Tony : I don't say that Google Site has not enought services to be the best website editor ever, I just said it don't even have features that are already available everywhere else. Blogger, Google Page Creator, Google docs and so more corporate products can be used instead of Google Sites, for doing the same things, and more.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

TomHTML, all Google Sites are completely disallowed from being crawled, so at this point I agree it seems no use for SEO spam:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /
http://sites.google.com/robots.txt

However, I wonder if Google Sites can make phishing possible/ easier, as the domain and site look rather official. My quick test at embedding a gadget which embeds an external site failed.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

They should have used googlesites.com or something similar (like for Page Creator).

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]TOMHTML, you said: "However, if you're looking for a real website, do not use Google Sites." and "Google Sites [...] should remain in "beta" and don't claim it's an useful service, because it's not. Not yet."

Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by "real website". I assumed that meant you were expecting Google Sites to be an editor for creating any type of website rather than a "team website" or wiki. And I believe it has more than enough features to make it useful and, because of this, I don't think it should carry the "Beta" tag. (Especially since it has fewer bugs than many other Google services from what I've seen.)

[put at-character here]Ionut:

> I thought their competition are wiki services like pbwiki.com/
> and others (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_far ...), not advanced
> services like SharePoint.

Agreed. Although I think that Google Sites is to MS SharePoint what Google Docs is to MS Office. By saying they were similar, I didn't meant to imply they were competitors, as such.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I think that Google Sites should be able to create any sort of website instead of having two tools (Sites and Page Creator). I suspect that this is Google's plan anyways.

Jim McNelis [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

Google Sites has great potential within the Google Apps family. Outside, I don't really see much appeal.

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