Yikesite.com Review

Building a new website from scratch on Yikesite.com is nearly as simple as sending an email. After filling out some very basic information to create a free account, you are directed to your new site in seconds. The site name you chose during setup is featured against a blue graphic header and typical pages are included in the starting setup: home, about us, products, services and contact us, plus four secondary links from the home page: news, events, jobs, sitemap. You'll be able to add and delete pages, change the order and change the pages names at any time. The url will be http://YOURSITENAME.yikesite.com/. Custom URLs can be directed to paid Yikesites.

The first thing you'll want to do on your brand new web site is edit pages. At the bottom of each page, there are two buttons, Admin and Edit. Select edit for the current page and a familiar WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor will open. It will look and act a great deal like a simplified document editing window, making page editing quick and easy. In the main window, you can do most basic tasks, like center or bold your text, and add bulleted lists, links and pictures. The advanced tab has a few more options like font choices and tables. Changing the page name requires opening the administration tab, but is just as easy.

This is where the simplified concept of the site breaks down, and one of the site limitations. There is no choice of interface, and updating graphics can be a challenge for a beginner. The default interface is a generic tone-on-tone diagonal stripe. From a professional, or even personal standpoint, most web site owners will want a custom header. The good news is that it's easy to update the graphics, the bad news it that it takes at least a basic familiarity with graphics, HTML and CSS to custom build a web site. There is a great API tutorial explaining in simple terms how it all works, but a genuine novice may have to settle for the default interface or hire a web designer.

For those who have some basic web code knowledge, the design source code can be accessed and updated by tabs, similar to editing pages. Available for editing are CSS, HTML and image library. Changing the interface is a matter of uploading a new image file and making appropriate display changes in the CSS code if necessary.