Free Web Hosting on Google Drive: Case study

Previously I looked at using other tools  to host sites sustainably (or even free) such as:

•  Dropbox (see:http://websitesustainability.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/alternative-hosting-approach-1-dropbox.html) 
• Google Sites (see:http://websitesustainability.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/google-sites-for-sustainability-week-3.html )
• Hosting options:http://websitesustainability.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/hosting-how-to-get-it-out-there-for.html
• Free tools:http://websitesustainability.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-best-free-tools-for-website.html
• Amazon S3 (see:http://websitesustainability.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/thoughts-about-using-amazon-s3.html)

In this post I look at a real web site being moved to being hosted on google Drive as a case study of moving sites that need preserving on to Google Drive as a hosting option.

1. First step is to capture the static HTML files.
We need to copy all the files we want, this has been discussed previous see
 http://websitesustainability.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/caught-it-copying-site-before-moving-it.html for a tool to capture the files from the site.

2. Label the folder containing the HTML files with whichever name you feel is appropriate (in my case I named the folder emkn).




Following steps are adapted from the approach demonstrated in Host a website on Google

3. Log in to Google Drive.

4. Copy the folder created in stage 2 to Google Drive in my case the folder  emkn.

Figure 1. Selecting the file

5. Now click on the share button (it looks like a person with a + next to their ear). This lets us change the sharing options, it will be initially set to private. Click on Change and select Public on the web .

Figure 2: Changing permissions

6. Open the folder (in this case emkn) and hopefully there is a file marked index.html. Open this and then click on preview; this allows viewing of the page and gives a URL for example https://googledrive.com/host/0B747yODJV8KTNUZGbUhUSGFNVWs/index.html that can be viewed by anyone. Copy this URL.

Your site should now be viewable (with a strange URL).

Optional step 7

Using a service such as bit.ly produce a shorter (and slightly more memorable) version such as http://bit.ly/ZkP2Vh