All website hosts found in the Free Websites Directory are rated by the same criteria... reliability... features... ease of use... speed... and size of free site. The ratings are represented by stars... the more stars a host has... the better the service.

Each quality or feature has a numerical value... the sum of these determines how many rating stars a host is given. Some features carry more weight than others. For example... long complicated web addresses (e.g. www.hostname/members/directory/you) get very low ratings for that feature. Hosts that offer full CGI capabilities get very high ratings for that feature.

A host with many good features can be penalized for the lack of speed... long web address... a lot of down time... or a bad user interface... etc.. The opposite is also true... a host with less features can benefit from excellent speed... ease of use... etc..

Our ratings are in no way intended to be a bad reflection on any of the host companies surveyed. Most website hosts offer services aimed at a particular type of user who may or may not require the types of features we use to rate them.

Finally... our ratings are based solely on our own observations and opinions.