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Rename Your Free Web Site

Homestead adds handy domain name registration and forwarding service.

By Richard Jantz, PCWorld   

Now even free Web site services are joining the domain name game. Homestead Technologies is the latest Web-page community site to offer a quick and easy domain name registration and forwarding service for about as much as it costs to rent a Post Office box.

Homestead's new domain forwarding service is available to customers of its free Web site service and is provided by its partner, AllDomains. You can search free of charge to check whether the name of your choice is available. To secure your own domain name--for example, www.yourname.com--Homestead registers the name with InterNIC, the official domain name registry. Then you can use that online address, and--like any hosting service--Homestead forwards any requests for your address to your Homestead Web site.

Homestead also forwards any e-mail sent to your domain name (that is, anything addressed to @yourname.com) to an e-mail address of your choice. If you already own a domain name, you can sign up for Homestead's Web site and e-mail forwarding service.

You can direct people to your Homestead Web site by giving them a standard domain address. The bottom line is that a convenient domain forwarding service like this provides a more professional Web presence--plus easier-to-find Web pages. It's well suited for entrepreneurs, clubs, organizations, and small and home businesses.

Not Alone, Not Costly

A number of free Web site services are extending this service, including Angelfire, Geocities, and Tripod. They all charge about the same, and it is indeed comparable to a box at the U.S. Post Office, which runs about $100 annually.

Homestead charges $49.95 for a one-time registration fee and $24.95 yearly. It adds the standard $70 fee for InterNIC registration for the first two years (InterNIC charges the first two years, then charges $35 each year thereafter).

Homestead recently added two useful features to its already capable free Web page editor, Homestead Publisher. You can now draw from a forms toolbox to create interactive forms. Homestead Publisher also provides a sound library of more than 130 free sound clips, including music, words, phrases, animal noises, and other sounds to enliven your pages.

I was most impressed with the new Forms Elements feature, which provides easy drop-and-drag tools so you can add list boxes, drop-down menus, option buttons, check boxes, submit and reset buttons, and other elements. Still, you need no knowledge of HTML. When a visitor fills out a form on your Web page, Homestead automatically sends you an e-mail with the results.

Plopping the forms elements onto my Web page was a snap. However, I'd like it better if Homestead offered novices a forms template with examples of how to use each element.

If you do business on the Web, the domain name forwarding service offered by Homestead and others is an affordable way to acquire a unique Web presence without the expense of maintaining your own Web server or signing a contract with a hosting service.