Description
SITE123 is a free website builder platform for small & medium businesses.
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Furthermore, we abstain from manipulating and inflating a company ranking for means of profit. The ratings are ultimately unbiased, and impartial. The rankings are calculated solely by our reviewer's extensive research and surveillance of the service’s accomplishments and progress.
OVERVIEW
One of the younger website building services available, SITE123 is a Los Angeles based company that decides to buck the trend of the popular drag-and-drop formula. The company goes for a old school approach to website design.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to pick up for beginners. | Less than a year in existence/relatively untested. |
| A lot of potential to grow. | Basic features do not cater to professional website builders. |
| Extremely basic eCommerce settings. | |
| Static templates that lack originality. |
PRICING
There are multiple pricing schemes that SITE123 employs. There is a free form of their monthly subscription service and they do have increasing levels of features as you pay for more.
| Free Version |
|---|
| SITE123 subdomain |
| Bandwidth size of 1 GB |
| Storage size of 500 MB |
| eCommerce/Limit of 10 orders in a month |
| Basic Version |
|---|
| $14.00 a month |
| $9.80 a month/yearly |
| $7.80 a month/2 year |
| $6.80 a month/3 year |
| SITE123 floating tag is removed |
| Domain connection |
| Bandwidth size of 5 GB |
| Storage size of 10 GB |
| Free domain for one year |
| Advanced Version |
|---|
| $22.00 a month |
| $15.80 a month/yearly |
| $13.80 a month/2 year |
| $11.80 a month/3 year |
| All Basic version features |
| Two mailboxes |
| eCommerce/Limit of 50 orders in a month |
| Bandwidth size of 15 GB |
| Storage size of 30 GB |
| Coupons |
| Removal of static footer |
| Professional Version |
|---|
| $30.00 a month |
| $21.80 a month/yearly |
| $17.80 a month/2 year |
| $14.80 a month/3 year |
| All Advanced version features |
| Bandwidth size of 45 GB |
| Storage size of 90 GB |
| Five mailboxes |
| eCommerce/Limit of 500 orders in a month |
| Gold Version |
|---|
| $38.00 a month |
| $27.80 a month/yearly |
| $22.80 a month/2 year |
| $19.80 a month/3 year |
| All Professional version features |
| Bandwidth size of 135 GB |
| Storage size of 270 GB |
| Ten mailboxes |
| Unlimited eCommerce orders each month |
FEATURES
If you’re more concerned with having a website than being able to customize it in any fashion, this company is for you. The ability to make a website in near record time can be diminished when the features provided fail to live up to industry standard.
SITE123 is not your typical drag-and-drop website builder, because it isn’t a drag-and-drop website builder at all. Once you look to create a website through this service, you’ll have to adhere to a particular creation path that the site wants you to take.
The template you get saddled with is going to be largely similar to the templates created for many other individuals who have sites they want to build. When you start creating your website, you will be asked what the website is for (what industry the content matter is related to). After you input some basic information, SITE123 will produce a website for you. While this is welcome, it won’t produce a large change depending on the information you provide.
Pages created with SITE123 start off as single page websites and must be optionally altered to become multi-page websites. While this isn’t readily made clear, it can be rectified relatively quickly. There are also a good mottling of SEO options to add to your site (you can turn a page into a blog through simple option manipulation).
One option that SITE123 is severely lacking is a way to redo or undo your decisions in building your site. However, even with the simplistic approach, SITE123 is a solid website builder with which anyone can achieve a level of success making a page.
SEAMLESSNESS
It might be a bit ironic to say so, but in the case of SITE123, having a simple building function is not doing the site any favors. Granted, the site is only a few months old so it might be going through its growing phases. But there are some distinct positives that can help long term website builders in the long run, should they decide to stick around.
At this moment, it can be said that the entire website building process is lacking when it comes to the creation aspect. There is no mobile editor to speak of and utilizing the desktop editor on a mobile device is a task.
There are certain integrations that exist that give a SITE123 website a unique feel. With integration with Bandsintown and Soundcloud, a site can be utilized for bands or musicians. This is very specific however, and obviously cannot help those who aren’t involved with music.
There are many plugins you can utilize should you decide to pay for a subscription with SITE123. Upon gaining said subscription you would learn about and have access to these plugins. It’s a small and typical addition.
CUSTOMER СARE
Another section of the site that is lackluster due to the age of the company and site is their customer support area. SITE123 does not offer much in the form of actual help. There is an FAQ that gives some basic information about the payment scheme and features associated with your chosen plan.
However, there is no 24/7 customer service option to speak of. On their “Contact Us” page there is a form you can fill out should you need help as well as some links to SITE123’s various social media presences. Should the form be unavailable for some reason a support email address is also listed. Receiving help in this manner (albeit very polite help) can vary in the amount of time it takes to receive an answer.
The experience of SITE123 is that of a website builder that has yet to hit its stride. While the main function of the service is there and present, it struggles to to deliver a full fledged offering while carving out a unique niche in an industry that is quickly becoming crowded with similar services. In time, and with the right direction, SITE123 can become a better all around service that expands on its base model without making it too complicated. Until that time, SITE123 is sorely lacking in many features that other companies and services offer in their packages.
