How do I start a free website?

[David]

I searched on google and saw that to host a website I have to pay a fee; so I was wondering - is there a way to make a free .com website? I DON'T want anything like <website-name>.wetpaint.com (There's not much customization to be done on wetpaint.com). I want to make a forum website. Thanks for the answers!

[Napster86]

try webs.com

[JoelKatz]

There is a fee for registering a .com domain name. That has nothing to do with hosting, and there's no way you can get around it.

[Daniel J]

Using webs.com you can indeed create the forum website that you are after, however it is like wetpaint domain wise where it'll be <website-name>.webs.com, I'm afraid that's just how hosting works.

The domain space and names for .com cost a lot of many for sites like webs, wetpaint, piczo and would too for the user like yourself, this is why you will not be able to find a free hosting site that is just <website-name>.com, because that in itself costs and the hosting sites will lose valuable money.

[Marwan]

http://www.vanillaforums.com/
Vanilla is a simple discussion forum that you can use to build community around your website, brand, or business. You'll have access to a fully functional forum, themes, categories, all of the admin features you need - Free.

http://www.lefora.com/
Just a few clicks to get the discussion started on Lefora free forum hosting service. With community Moderation and Anti-Spam support, email notifications, RSS, newsletters, and search engine (SEO) friendly, videos, photos, threaded discussions, unread tracking and rich text editors, and much more.

http://omgili.com/
Omgili is a search engine designed to index web-based discussion forums. Omgili's unique algorithm analyzes forums not as a simple web page, but as an active discussion with a title, topic and replies.

http://www.webon.com/
Make the site you've always wanted now, instantly build, publish & share. Create interactive, stylish & ad-free pages, with Webon's powerful site creation platform.

http://www.stribe.com/
Create, publish and manage easily your community on your website. Get your own social network in a very short time.

http://www.webs.com/
Webs (Freewebs) is one of the easiest site building tools around that helps you create professional good-looking site for your family, friends, customers or just for yourself. Users are given 40MB free space and 500MB bandwidth per month.

http://www.weebly.com/
Weebly is the easiest way to create, upload a website, and share it with the world for free. From personal to professional sites, Weebly will enable you to spend your time on the most valuable part of your site, its content.

http://www.devhub.com/
By playing the DevHub game, you can easily build vertically-focused, media-rich destination sites that have the potential to generate revenue and promote user-engagement.

http://kafafa.com/
Kafafa enables the user to create professional-looking websites with no programming knowledge.

http://www.lifeyo.com/
Lifeyo lets people make websites. It is a simple and free website creation tool that lets anyone have a great looking website.

http://www.yola.com/
Learn how to make a free website. Yola will allow you to build a website quickly and will provide you with free hosting for your website.

http://www.livejournal.com/
LiveJournal is an online journal service with an emphasis on user interaction. A basic, fully-functional account is free, while paid accounts receive access to premium features. You can use LiveJournal in many ways: a private journal, a blog, a discussion forum or a social network.

http://tal.ki/
Now you can embed a forum just like a YouTube video. Your forum will be integrated with Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other services so members can skip registration. Turn passive blog and content readers into participating members, contributing content.

[Roald]

There is no such thing as a free domain -- not if you want a good one. Free web hosts do exist, but they have their limitations, and more often than not the headaches that come with them aren't worth even their free price. However, there are web hosts that also offer domain registration, so that you can get both in one go. Check out http://buywebspacetoday.com/ for recommended web hosts. Note that some of these web hosts do offer free domain registration if you sign up with their web hosting, so that's bound to save you some money.You don't have to spend a lot of money, by the way. A typical hosting plan that has all the features you need goes from $6 to $8 a month.

Once you get your hosting, go to your control panel and look for Fantastico. Use this tool for a one-click install of Wordpress, a content management system that will allow you to create pages, write posts, add links, and basically do a lot of stuff to create an awesome website. You can choose a free theme (there are tons to choose from) that goes with your forum's topic. You can install a free plugin to integrate a discussion forum (I would suggest bbPress). And you can even have individual members login and profiles.

[LesterLester]

First you need to find a free web hosting
I recommend you JustFree - 2G free space PHP