1&1 claims its sites are quick to set up, and include standard text, which can speed the establishment of a web presence. There are two offerings, for personal and business sites; we look at the Personal version here.
The site designs are neatly divided into categories. Having signed up though, we were presented with 300 templates categorised under less helpful headings, such as Futuristic and Trendy It can take a while to find the right template.
The site structure in the templates is well established, with many obvious headings already in place. So, for example, menu options such as Our Sports and Our Pets are available, and can easily be hidden or removed. New pages can be added too, which take on the predefined template style.
Adjusting the site structure and page elements is straightforward. Click on any element and an editing frame pops up; a text frame offers an editor and typographical choices, while picture frames offer to upload new images. Picture size optimisation is automatic, but images can be resized, flipped, rotated, sharpened and brightened.
YouTube videos can be included on pages and documents can be held on a site for download, subject to a 10GB website storage limit. MyWebsite Personal also includes the facility to maintain a guestbook for direct feedback and a contact form, so your readers and/or customers can directly get in touch.
Widgets provide buttons to link social-networking and other services, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 1&1 also caters for Flash movies, photo galleries, forms and hit counters, among many other smart page elements
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