Getting British Business Online (GBBO)

patman99

I signed-up for GBBO a few days ago as they give you a free '.co.uk' address & a website. As it was backed by Google & BT (amongst others), I thought it was worth doing.

Turns-out that your site is created in 'Google site creator' which is beyond awfull. It used to be possible to work around this by setting-up an account at x10hosting, and changing your GBBO nameserver setting to point to this instead. However, since someone did a ste-by-step guide on how to do it, BT (who run the hosting side of GBBO) have removed the 'Change nameserver' option from the drop down list available in the manage accounts section. You now have to contact GBBO and request the change instead.

Smacks of sour grapes to me. When a business decides to go online, it needs the process to be as painless as possible. Unfortuanately being forced to use GoogleSite will really put businesses off, especially when the spend hours hand-coding their website, uploading images & fathoming work-rounds to get javescripts to work only to find the next day that google have changed the settings & given the site a different template.

Be warned, if you want a free site that looks like it was designed by a 2-year old, and has little or no functionalaty, then go down the GBBO route, if you want to have a fully-interactive site, then look elsewhere.

paulwf

I think the key thing is to make sure that you always own your own domain names, i.e. purchase them yourself from somewhere like 123-reg or similar. That way even if you get the worst website host ever at least you have the control to switch to a new host.

borders_dude

paulwf wrote: »

I think the key thing is to make sure that you always own your own domain names, i.e. purchase them yourself from somewhere like 123-reg or similar. That way even if you get the worst website host ever at least you have the control to switch to a new host.

I agree with this.

The other main point for me is that with websites, you get what you pay for!

Free or cheap websites serve a purpose but all to often they are cheap and tacky and givea a poor impression to customers.

I honestly believe its worth spending as much as you can afford when it comes to websites.

patman99

Hoorah, GBBO have responded to my request. apparrently they changed things due to security issues.

hunnie

Hi,
Has anyone registered a domain name with them and published a free website?

www.gbbo.co.uk

Although we have a freebie website already, I wondered if with this we could get a small income from adverts but not sure if that would be allowed.

regards, hunnie

paulwf

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2543843

hunnie

Thanks Paul!
Might stick with our free one!

Savvy_Sue

Bumping to merge with a newer thread.

Dunx69

I found this website which offers a completely free website for all businesses within the UK.

http://www.gbbo.co.uk




Because we're working with Google & BT we're able to offer you a free website for 2 years, after that you'll only have to pay a few pounds to renew your domain name for a further 2 years - you're not tied in to a contract and we won't put ads on your site without your permission.


GBBO is a joint initiative by Google, Enterprise UK, BT, e-skills UK and many other partners to help small businesses create their first website and help them understand the opportunities offered by the Internet. We've set a target of helping 100,000 UK organisations get their first website easily and for free by the end of 2010.

paulwf

Thanks Dunx69...this topic has come up before a couple of times, as the other thread contains some useful additional info perhaps a moderator could consider a merge?

carkeyz

I would love to reccomend them.... i have my business site with them and it is sooo easy to do, you dont need someone that knows what they are doing to set it up! And it is live asap x