**Google Drive**
In November of 2012, Google announced a new Google Drive feature. Essentially, this feature allows you to become your own web host. Sadly, Google's âÃÂÃÂeasy to followâÃÂàinstructions were less than simple. Thankfully, these steps make the process a whole lot easier. Here's how to host your web pages using Google Drive
**1 Begin by logging in to your Google Drive account. You'll see a âÃÂÃÂCreateâÃÂàbutton: click it, and choose âÃÂÃÂFolderâÃÂàin the sub-menu. A dialogue box will pop up allowing you to name the folder. **2 Your new folder will be listed in your drive. Click the checkbox next to your new folder, then the âÃÂÃÂSharing SettingsâÃÂàicon. You need to change the settings from private to public by clicking âÃÂÃÂChange,âÃÂàthen selecting âÃÂÃÂPublic on the Web.âÃÂà**3 Now, you need to add some files to the folder. Click on the folder title, and then click on the upload icon. Select âÃÂÃÂFilesâÃÂàfrom the dropdown menu. **4 If you have an index.html file, you'll want to select it from your hard drive, then click âÃÂÃÂUpload and Share.âÃÂàThis is your site's home page
If you do not have an index.html file, your site's home page will instead be a directory listing of the files contained in that folder. Also, assure you do not allow Google Drive to convert the HTML files to GoogleDocs files
**5 Now, it's time to determine what your site's web address is. This is a little tedious, as there's a bit of cut and paste work involved. (This is one factor to consider before choosing this method of web hosting rather than going with one of the top hosting companies: do you have the time for this project?)
Start by copying the string of characters that follow âÃÂÃÂ#folders/âÃÂàin the web address. Type âÃÂÃÂhttpgoogledrive.com/host/âÃÂàand paste the copied characters directly after it. That is your new web address
That's it! You now have the home page all set up. What are the best applications for this type of web hosting? It certainly isn't the best hosting option for everyone, but there are some practical uses
Who Should Use This Hosting Method
This method lends itself well to a simple online resume. Or, fill it with images, and you've just made your own photo gallery. Small businesses (less than 20 people) will get the most of of this hosting method
Or, groups like baseball teams, coworkers putting together a project, and college students working on group materials. Users can control who is allowed access and view material on the site, as well as those who have editing privileges. So, this really is a great group collaboration tool âÃÂàkind of like Dropbox
The service is $5/user/month, or $50/user/year, and comes with 10GB of storage, along with 500MB of storage for each group user. Google Drive has been around for a long time, and this relatively new feature just puts Drive one step above the rest. Other collaboration services to check out include Dropbox (a similar service) and Basecamp
Google drive is stable, cheap and easy to use making it a good solution for small businesses. It is so stable that even small outage cause agitation and it has less vulnerabilities. Most important feature is hosting a web page for free. The basic steps of Google drive are:-
- Uploading an HTML file to Google drive
- Finding the fileâÃÂÃÂs document ID from the sharing button
- Inserting that into the address âÃÂÃÂgoogledrive.com/host/ID/âÃÂàwhere ID is the document ID
Benefits and Drawbacks:
The benefits of Google Drive are:
- It is reliable host and allows custom HTML, CSS and Javascript
- It saves the difficulty of relying on an unknown companyâÃÂÃÂs policies and having to renew userâÃÂÃÂs domain
- It is a good solution for those who need to host a company bracket or get a portfolio site
- The Privacy of user can be controlled using Google DriveâÃÂÃÂs sharing features
The Drawbacks of Google Drive are:
- User can navigate to the site with a 60 character URL but once anyone arrives at the site it displays about 100 characters
- It is difficult to remember an address that is long
- The one who has less technical knowledge wonâÃÂÃÂt know how to use TinyURL to put that in a tweet
- There are gTLD services which provide a shorter URL to redirect to the Google Drive siteâÃÂÃÂs landing page but can affect the siteâÃÂÃÂs trustworthiness
- Using webmaster tools user canâÃÂÃÂt set level domain settings, so few tools may not be accessible
- For professional business paying for site hosting with high traffic is costly.