A Review of Site Building Tools |
 Most web hosts provide their customers with a web site building tool in
one form or other. These tools can provide more novice users with the perfect means to create a quick and
easy web site. The wrong tool however, can be a big waste of time, causing frustration and a headache. If
you are a novice user looking to create your first web site, the quality of their site builder should be a
large factor in your choice of a web host. Unfortunately, most web hosts don’t provide demos of their site
builder tools. This article is intended to provide an overview of all the site building tools available,
to help you in selecting your web host.
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| 1. Yahoo! SiteBuilder |
The Yahoo! SiteBuilder is available for download from the Yahoo web site. The fact
that you must install their tool on your computer can be a pro and a con. The downside is that the
tool takes up resources on your computer; the upside is that it is somewhat more extensive than the
other site building tools.
Their tool includes multiple web site templates divided into different categories. Their templates
are professional looking with stock photos included. The tool also has the ability to download more
templates from the Yahoo! web site. The library of stock photos is not very extensive however.
A nice feature of the Yahoo tool is that it is very easy to add a shopping cart to your web site using
their tool. This is because Yahoo offers their own merchant software – Yahoo! Store. To publish a web
site built using Yahoo! SiteBuilder, a user must purchase hosting account from Yahoo.
Overall their tool is quite good, however it may be a little complicated for beginners.
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| 2. 1&1 WebsiteCreator |
1&1’s WebsiteCreator is very extensive with a large number of features included. The
functions of the tool are easy and intuitive to use. As a result, building and editing your site is a
painless process.
WebsiteCreator’s real weakness, however is that it is difficult to produce a quality site using the tool. This is because the templates and stock images included are unprofessional looking. Additionally, although several add-ons are included such as flash animations and a newsticker, these features only serve to make your site look amateurish.
Additionally several bugs were found in their tool, making the whole process more cumbersome then necessary. WebsiteCreator also limits the number of site you can create to 1. If you want to create additional sites you must upgrade for a fee.
1&1’s WebsiteCreator has the potential to be excellent, however its quality is drastically reduced by the unprofessional sites it creates.
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