I like your explanation of blogs vs websites. I actually turned off the dates on two of my blogs because I didn’t like the pressure to post created by a prominently displayed long-past date. Now that blogger offers static pages (the main thing I missed when I came over from WordPress), it’s easier to get more of a website look but . . .

I’ll check out the free hosts – I didn’t even know such a thing was available. I’ll most likely go with HostGator but it doesn’t hurt to check out all the options. Thanks again!
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Two things to consider — I believe that HostGator will let you host unlimited domains, but you have to pay for the domain name. You get one (or maybe 2 or 3) free with hosting, but for the rest you have to pay a yearly fee for the domain name itself, which is why Felicia recommends registering them at GoDaddy, since it’s cheaper to register them there, usually. Correct me if I’m wrong, Felicia.

The other thing is — how long is the billing cycle. Often web hosts will advertise a really low monthly price. Then you find out you can’t pay for one month and get that price. Often you have to pay for a year or more in advance in order to get the good price. Some hosts won’t take monthly payments at all, but require you to pay for at least 3 months at a time or even up to a year at a time. Which can be kind of a lot of money. HostGator gives you a price break when you pay in advance for several months, but they will let you pay monthly if you want.

Also — blogs vs. websites: It’s really all about how often you plan to update. A blog wants to be updated frequently. A visitor will automatically see the most recent post when they visit. If there are no recent posts, some blogging platforms will show the most recent, even if it’s old, and others will show some strange sort of blank page with a list of archives. But a website can have static pages that don’t give a hint as to how long they’ve been there. You can probably tweak a blog’s settings so the dates don’t show, or aren’t obvious, but when it comes down to it, there is a fundamental difference between a blog and a website, more than just being easier to format. For some reason, it’s harder to find hosts that offer inexpensive hosting with easy to format websites compared to finding easy to format blogs. I guess because the content management systems for blogs make it easier for the hosts to offer that without charging a lot of money.

I think it’s true that you’re better of paying for hosting if you want to make money, but if you are interested in free hosting that offers easy to build pages, three I can recommend are wix.com, weebly.com and webs.com. I found these while writing articles for DS.
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