I created a website using freewebs, and...

the most prized advantage of a paid website: http://www.yoursite.com = prestige!! http://yoursite.freewebs.com = internet crackpot conspiracy theorist

other advantages: higher allowances on inbound and outbound traffic (if people will be downloading big files off your site), more storage space, support for dynamic processes like web-based commerce, peronalized e-mail adresses.

bottom line – are you doing business off your web site? then you NEED paid hosting with your own domain. are you telling the world that the moon landing was faked? freewebs will work just fine for you.

Actually the longer URL from freewebs isnt a problem for me, I found a free URL forwarder so now my website URL is even shorter than ”.com”

i took a look at freewebs – it looks like the free version will put ads on your site. also, i took a look at http://shorturl.com (is that what you were refering to?). it looks like you still won’t have a “www.yoursite.com” address. once again, it really should meet your needs if you don’t need it to look like you spent money on it. Because no amount of free will make it look like you spent money on it.

Actually shorturl makes my URL much longer, my friend created a better URL shortener with only two letters instead of .com’s 3.

i can’t say any more than i already have. if you can stand freeweb’s ads, and a nonstandard address, this is perfectly okay. but the web is not a magical place where you can get EVERYTHING for free. you get what you pay for. if you need this site for professional reasons, i STRONGLY advise paying for it. i just set up someone at http://www.startlogic.com for $60 per year. if you NEED this site to make money this is peanuts.

Please do not set your account up at Startlogic, I have had bad experiences with them. If you want to have your own domain with lots of hosting, send a P.M. this way ;) Of course, you’d have to pay for the domain and the transfer to my account, but that’s nothing compared to what you’ll pay signing up with hosting.

Depends on what you’re doing too. I pay $20 a month to Media Temple, they’re very reliable and great admin user interface. http://mediatemple.net

why not get a free web like wordpress, and buy your own http://www.com name and have the best of all worlds?

allengreen where can I get a wordpress website?

http://wordpress.org/

Most of all webhosts have one click install applications which usually includes Wordpress.