Google Sites

Google Sites

Overview

Google Sites (http://sites.google.com/) is a free application for creating, sharing, and updating customized websites.  It offers an intermediate solution between basic office collaboration software that permits web-based single file sharing (e.g., TypeWith.Me or Google docs) and the complexities of designing and publishing a customized website.

Strengths

The major advantages Google Sites offers over traditional website are cost and simplicity.  Google Sites offers free hosting, free domains, free templates, and free editing tools for websites – clearly an economically-friendly option. Additionally, default and displays are not used to underwrite this expense. The templates and tools offered by Google Sites also eliminates the need to find and register a domain name, know webpage scripting languages (e.g., HTML, PHP, CSS, etc.), or navigate FTP clients (or some other hosting service software). Google Sites offers a variety of webpages (e.g., web page, blog, announcements, file cabinets, and lists) that can handle several different content formats (e.g., photos, videos, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, web feeds, calendars, etc.). Initial creators of a Google Sites site can specify owners, collaborators and viewers, thereby controlling read and write access to site content. All sites are equipped with Google search technology to help visitors quickly find information on each website.

Weaknesses

The cost of simplicity in website creation through Google Sites is the lost capacity to uniquely customize your webpages. Although knowledge of webpage scripting languages is not required for developing Google Sites pages, you typically cannot use these languages to customize layouts and content even if they are known. Users are restricted to available themes and structures for webpages, which are limited in color, font type, font size, and other attributes.  Another drawback of Google Sites for some users is its default web address for individual sites, which takes the general form: http://sites.google.com/site/sitename. Custom domains may be displayed provided they are owned and registered. For free accounts, websites are restricted to 100 MB of storage; 10 GB is available for Google Apps users (which require a $50 annual subscription per user). Comments cannot be left by visitors to websites unless they have full access to edit all content.

Examples

The Partners in Flight Western Working Group is currently utilizing Google Sites to host its website: (http://sites.google.com/site/pifwesternworkinggroup/home/). Included on the website are multiple pages, each containing links to additional websites, email addresses, and additional documents (both .doc and .pdf). Southeast Partners in Flight uses Google sites to host web pages for issue-based committees (e.g., http://tools.sepif.org/). The site is mapped to a custom web address and includes a blog (project updates) and web feed.

Further reading

A tour of Google Sites is available at the following link: http://www.google.com/support/sites/

This publication is dynamic in that it will continue to be improved, updated, and expanded over time. Suggestions for improving the content, organization, and scope of this publication are encouraged and can be contributed here (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NP3Y772).