If you are planning to launch your own Website, without any expertise in designing whatsoever, the Google has just introduced an easier way than ever. Search engine giant Google Inc. recently announced the extensive availability of the new Google Sites app.
Since a small number of people use Google Apps, Google Sites -– which was smartly tucked away inside -– never mattered much. It has now extended the availability of its Google Sites service — originally only for Google Apps users — and Google is championing the product as a good way for individuals to collaborate.
Google launched Sites back in February, but the new Web-design app, was initially targeted at small businesses looking to create a simple and quick Web presence. However, the company has now repealed these restrictions meaning anybody having little notion to create a website can do so without needing any great technical knowledge.
Integrated into Google Apps, the new app lets you create Web pages “from scratch with the click of a button,” according to Google.
“Getting started is every bit as easy as Google claims.”
Google writes in its blog: “We have made it easy for anyone to set up a website and 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.”
Just click on Create New Site, and then enter a site name and URL (https://sites.google.com/site/sites/yoursite).
Similar to Docs and YouTube, Sites prompts you to choose a privacy level, building the site either completely public; or limiting it to whom you invite directly. The app offers up 20 site themes. All are pretty basic — the sort of fare we have come to expect from free blog programs like Blogger and Vox.
Google Sites essentially marries a WYSIWYG website creator with an online collaboration app; your site can be edited with Google’s standard front-end editor, offering fairly basic functions such as font styles, links, and text align.
A button on the far right lets you toggle in and out of HTML entry mode. Working on any particular page should be extremely easy thanks to Sites built-in editing tools that are similar to those in Google Docs, as well as documents, calendars, photos, videos and gadgets can all be embedded into pages from there, and invite others to view or edit the pages by handing out user privileges. The uploaded files can not exceed 10MB.
For beginners, building a website with Google Sites is free. Also, users can add as many pages to a site as they want.
While Google conveyed its usual message across their official blogs, the company has yet to prominently display the new app in its toolbar.
While the service will definitely strike to some as rather unsophisticated, but in the spirit of Web 2.0, the ability for many to contribute, change, and collectively alter Web documents can be truly powerful… or utterly annoying. Either way, launching your own Web site just got a little bit simpler.