Step-by-Step Guide to Using 123-reg Instant Site

What do you get from Instant Site? Many registrars provide free hosting and webpage builders, but are they any good? Here we go through the application offered by 123-reg, so you can decide.

Summary:

Simple and easy to use
Some nice templates
Your company logo can be used
Banner images are a bit naff and can't be uploaded
You can only create one page
It's a scam to make you purchase a hosting plan

Instant Site can be found under the 123-reg Control Panel. The instructions are  straight forward.

You first choose the domain you want to use the website builder on. Make sure you select the FREE option (Starter) and press Next. Tip! If you've forwarded the domain to another site, first turn this off under Domain Forwarding by pointing it back to the 123-reg default page.

You will then be forwarded to the Instant Site page where you can start building.  If Instant Site doesnt appear and you get thrown out to the default control panel , check that your cookie settings are low enough to allow it to work.

You design your site with Instant site by selecting several elements: Design, Colour Scheme, a Header Banner, Buttons, Logo, Flash intro, and information you type in. The Designs are suitable enough to provide a semi-professional look or a fun family page, but the banner images are a bit cheesy and it is not possible to provide your own. You can add your company logo to the page; the instructions suggest there is a size restriction, but at pegley.net we found we could upload larger logos.



You can add extra pages, but these must be paid for. There are two styles for pages, Business and Personal. Under Business you can enter About pages, company Overview, Clients, Products/Services, Contact Page, and more. For Personal pages  you add About Me, My Family, Photos, Resume, Favourite Links, and a Contact Page. These create pre-defined pages, however there is also the option to add your own pages with customised titles.

You can provide standard information such as meta-tags and site description which are used by search engines such as Lycos and Google.

Finally you publish the page. For us this didn't work first time which is really annoying, it just came up with the default 123-reg page. It also advises you to back up your existing files (i.e. the website) before you proceed, but with no link to download the webpage you just created - more annoyance.



After reading the help section that explains the publishing process you make a big discovery......

Instant Site allows you to build the webpage but the publishing process does not publish it to the web. You must first purchase hosting to publish the page. This is quite appalling. Imagine having spent a couple of hours working with the kids on a fun page to find at the end that you cant see it on the web unless you purchase another service. I imagine that 123-reg hope you will purchase their hosting plan.

Conclusion:

Our conclusion is that what could be a beginner or family friendly application is turned into a sad way to milk the customer of more cash. Our concerns are, that with 123-reg's questionable online support, that this could be a waste of money for a beginner.

So our impression of 123-reg remains unchanged: they are OK if you want to save money on .co.uk domains, but we advise forwarding these to a different hosting company. If you don't already have hosting, be aware other hosts such as 1and1, offer a free domain name with their basic hosting plans plus a website builder (8 pages).