OT: Free/cheap web hosting

Owain

They do it for any domains that they run DNS for.

I have a .com doing it

That's only half the battle though, just because 123 DNS sends

Yes exactly - I'm not sure a cname can point to a specific Google Site ie I don't think you can have: "

The cPanel redirect I use at the moment actually works by creating a rewritecondition/rewriterule in the .htaccess file, but of course that has to be hosted.

Ignore that - it can be done using a ghs.googlehosted.com CNAME and some other Google magic.

amazon require an ALIAS (similar to a CNAME) to point a DNS name to an S3 bucket, but only amazon's route53 DNS servers allow such an ALIAS record to be created.

Google Sites does.

At least, the CNAME points to 123-reg Domain Forwarding, which then provides a 301 Redirect Forwarding, which works to Google Sites

Owain

OK, a 301 isn't too bad, unlike ye olde frame redirection method ...

-on-my-domain-name-1198/

Isn't a redirection to a different URL going to cause an Awful Warning with most modern browsers? Which is going to put many users off, even if the browser allows it at all.

No, will cause a small delay, but nobody will notice ...

sigh.

Since it is about the most common thing that people do when setting up a website any idiot can find information on how to do it on the web.

Just not you, it seems

Christ you make simple s*it complicated...

If you have aq server with an .htaccess file WTF dont you make that server the proper one and dump all the google s*it?

Read my original post again - I want to pass the domain over to someone who doesn't have (or need) any hosting.

But if they are going to have a website they DO need some sort of hosting?

Yes - it's hosted on Google Sites. Do I have to repeat the whole scenario?

Oh do f*ck off ... you're hardly the only person that knows how to knit domains, dns, linux and http servers together.

Well no, since your statements are inconsistent

Clearly the 'google sites' site is not a proper web site

It's just a subdivision of someone elses.

Its the usual peoce of GoogleCrap? that gets you locked into someone else's (profitable) way of doing things, rather than the way you actually wanted

Exactly so, but not it seems 're-entrant'

Well, people are free to mix and match, either paying for a domain, or using a free sub-domain from their ISP. Not many ISPs give free hosting nowadays, but you can get static pages for free with google, or buy hosting for cheap. Until last year we used to run half a dozen of our Xen boxes in a datacentre with various VMs for web/database/email/dns, but the economics now mean they've been replaced by amazon S3 buckets and EC2 hosts.

Clearly you do lose control and flexibility by bolting together freebies from various suppliers, but as long as it fits the bill for some people, why not?