This WEB Site Created

by using Google Sites

A Brief Note

If you are looking to launch your own website, the author believes "Google Sites"—a free website builder provided by Google—is one of the best options available. The very website you are viewing right now was created using this tool, and the author continues to develop and update it on an ongoing basis.

This website was created using Google Sites. This is one of the free homepage builders. Just because this website is free, it does not include Google advertisements.

To create a full-scale website, you may need to hire a professional using programing languages ​​such as HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language: document structure construction), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets: appearance correction), and JAVA Script (dynamic expression). In addition, to publish the website, you need to pay a monthly server rental fee to a provider.

However, with Google Sites, you can create a website on your own and for free, and publish it on Google for free. The fact that you can do it all by yourself means that you can revise, add to, and improve the website at any time to your heart's content, and you can develop your own site little by little.

Google Sites is completely free because it is in the same vein as other Google services such as public viewing of YouTube, setting up and using Gmail, searching by keyword, and using Google MAP, which are all free. While the author is aware of the fact that he is part of the huge and monopolistic system of Google, a private company, the author thought that there was no way he would not take advantage of its convenience.

The author has no knowledge of languages ​​such as HTML. However, he has used PowerPoint and KeyNote to a certain extent at academic conferences. The system of Google Sites is different from PowerPoint, but the author thinks it is about the same in terms of difficulty. However, it does not have the same depth of hierarchy and breadth of options as PowerPoint, and the range of things you can do is limited. Even with this background, it is possible to create a website of this level. For those who feel that this is all they can do, the author believes that you can do better if you become more familiar with Google sites, as he has not yet fully mastered them.

Google Sites Introduction Article:

https://www.topgate.co.jp/google-site-creation

Google Sites Introduction YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TXd2kB74DI

The following are bullet points that the author has noticed about creating websites using Google Sites. 

a) The content of the website is not written in HTML, but rather in several pre-prepared templates, allowing you to input text and import photos as easily as creating PowerPoint creation.

Google Sites introduction article:

https://support.google.com/sites/answer/6372878?hl=ja

b) There is no cost to create and publish a website. Normally, it costs money to hire a professional to create a website, and if you want to publish it, you will have to pay a monthly rental server fee. With Google Websites, these costs are not incurred at all.

c) Once a website has been published, you can immediately edit it yourself and republish it at any time, and you can also cancel publication at any time.

d) Within certain limits, there is a sufficient degree of freedom in inputting text and pasting figures, photos, etc.

e) Sites created on a computer are automatically optimized for tablet and smartphone screens. Nearly half of current website browsing is done on smartphones and tablets. Some old websites created in the computer era do not support this. However, smartphone screens come in a variety of sizes, and not all smartphone screen sizes are optimized, so the text arrangement may be misaligned.

Things the author has noticed from using Google Sites

a) Although it is said that it is easy to create like PowerPoint, when creating a site, every character is exchanged with the Google server as you enter it. As a result, you may encounter some problems. However, this is something that can be learned and avoided if you understand how it works.

b) As an example of the above, there is a problem with the font used. If you copy and paste the manuscript of the site created in Word or other software as is, it may not work well. This is because there are fonts (Gentium Basic, Lato, Lora, etc.) that are compatible with Google Sites, and problems may occur if you do not change the font. Conversely, if you use a compatible font, the text will be optimized when viewed on a computer, smartphone, or tablet. Also, if you select a black background color, the text will automatically be optimized to white, and if you select a white background, the text will automatically be optimized to black, making it easier to read. However, this is only when you use a font that matches the Google site mentioned above. If you simply copy and paste fonts such as MS Gothic or MS Mincho from Word, this optimization will not be performed.

c) As a continuation of the font problem, you may not be able to copy and paste text within the same page or to another page. In that case, you may be able to successfully copy and paste the text by first changing the text font to Genitnum Basic, then copying and pasting, and then converting it to the desired Google text font. Also, if you click on the top right corner of the image below, the bottom row will appear. There, clicking the T ＼ on the bottom right corner may clear the overflowing buffer contents, and various problems may be resolved. Also, there are two types of text: "title, heading, subheading" and "standard text." It is important to clearly recognize these two types of modes when working. If you do not do this, you may not get the font you want, or you may get into other trouble.

d) Many of the recent top pages of corporate and university websites use dynamic expressions such as Java Script, but this website does not allow such things. This website has a system where you can choose from several templates, and there are no such dynamic expressions at present.

e) It is possible to directly and freely import images in formats such as JPEG and PNG into this website. However, videos cannot be imported directly. Videos can only be inserted after they have been uploaded to YouTube. Furthermore, PDF files such as entire papers cannot be inserted into the site. We assume that this is due to restrictions imposed by Google due to copyright issues. However, it seems that authors can save videos and PDF files in their own Google Drive and viewers can indirectly view them from there. However, viewers must enter their own Gmail address every time they view them, and we wonder whether they would want to go to such lengths to view them.

f) When pasting an image such as a table created in Excel into this website, if it is in JPEG format, the whole image appears a little blurry. Since PDF cannot be used, the author found that PNG is a good choice. However, in the case of photos, the degradation of image quality is not so noticeable even with JPEG. The available capacity of this website is 15GB, so the fact that PNG uses more capacity than JPEG is hardly a problem. However, that available capacity is the capacity of the entire Google account, including files such as g-mail, documents, and photos. Even so, the file capacity including this website is still less than 1/15 of the upper limit of 15GB, so the author thinks there is more than enough room for file capacity.

g) Even if you create a website and think you have published it, it will not be searched on Google even after several months have passed. At this stage, you can see your site by entering the URL of your site on Google. However, this does not allow the general public to search for keywords. This is because the site you created needs to be registered and set up on the Search Console, which is a server on Google. Only after doing this will the robots on the Google server be able to find your site, gradually improve its ranking, and make it available for keyword searches by the general public. The author consulted a professional and had this problem solved. However, there are detailed explanations on YouTube and elsewhere on how to register with Search Console.

Google Search Console Registration Introduction Article:

https://web-kanji.com/posts/search-console-setting

Google Search Console Registration Introduction YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gu3JuBpkaA

h) In addition to registering with Google Search Console, you can register with Google Analytics to keep track of site browsing. There are also detailed explanations on YouTube and elsewhere on how to register with Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Registration Introduction Article:

https://www.sakurasaku-labo.jp/blogs/google-analytics-4

i) On this website, you can link to other pages on the website by clicking on a term in a specific sentence. However, this link is only on a page-by-page basis, and the author dose not think you can link (anchor link) to a specific heading (heading, subheading, etc.) on the page. The author has written up to this point, but he found that there is an option to turn on anchor links in the "Viewer Tools" preferences of this website. However, there is one more thing the author does not understand about how to use this. There is also a statement on NET that anchor links cannot be used in Google Sites.

j) Professional website builders will want to list the problems and things that Google Sites cannot do. Certainly, there are concerns about how easily websites can be created by individuals. Perhaps because of this, there are also articles critical of Google Sites. In addition to Google Sites, there are several free website builders such as WIX and JIMDO. However, the author thinks that these require acquisition of a domain and contract with a provider and payment of a monthly fee if you want to publish content on the Internet. The author thinks that what makes Google Sites different from other free website builders is that everything can be used for free.

k) Therefore, thr author thinks that you should first try to set up your own website using Google Sites, and if that doesn't satisfy you, then you can use or learn various languages ​​to create a more professional site as the next step.