Reviews of Top 10 Most Popular Website Platforms Today more than 30 website builder platforms provide their services, and they are usually owned or provided by the website hosting providers. So, what is the aim of each website builder? The thing is that each of.
Type of site | Web hosting service |
|---|---|
| Founded | March 29, 2006; 14 years ago (Beta) |
| Founder(s) | |
| Parent | Square, Inc. |
| URL | weebly.com |
Pros of Using Weebly. Here's what I found to be the pros of Weebly – not just in comparison to Squarespace and Wix or Weebly vs. WordPress, but also as an overall online website solution. According to the About Us section on weebly.com, Weebly was founded in 2006 with the purpose of helping people put information online quickly and easily. Since then, they have grown to become one of the most common website platforms with the backing of numerous investors. With words by Ed Sheeran and illustrations by his childhood friend, artist Phillip Butah (who produces artwork for Sheeran's albums and singles), and accompanying photos, Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey is an exclusive, fully authorised, first-person account by Ed of how he became an internationally renowned singer-songwriter.
Weebly (/ˈwiːbli/) is a web hosting service, headquartered in San Francisco. Its parent company is Square, Inc. On acquisition in April 2018, Weebly had more than 625,000 paid subscribers.[2]
History[edit]
Weebly Tutorial Pdf
Weebly was founded in 2006 by Chief Executive Officer David Rusenko, Chief Technology Officer Chris Fanini, and former Chief Product Officer Dan Veltri.[3] Rusenko and Fanini both attended the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) while Veltri attended the university's Smeal College of Business. At the time, Penn State required all students to maintain an Internet portfolio, so they built upon this idea and created software that made it easy for anyone to build a personal website.[3]
Formal development of Weebly began in January 2006.[4] The invitational beta release was announced in June 2006.[5] The official private-beta launched in September 2006.[6]
In January 2007, Weebly was selected for Y Combinator's winter startup program.[3]
In March 2007, Weebly re-launched with its 'WYSIWYG' editing interface.[7] Also in 2007, Weebly raised a US$650,000 financing round from several angel investors, including Ron Conway, Steve Anderson, Mike Maples, and Paul Buchheit.[3][7]
In 2008 Weebly added 'Pro' accounts and Google AdSense monetization features, as well as compatibility with Google Chrome and Safari.[8]
During its initial startup years, Weebly received criticism for its lack of CSS/HTML editing support, and in 2009 added this functionality. In 2010, the company added French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese languages.[9]
In 2011, Weebly raised a growth-stage round from Sequoia Capital and added Roelof Botha to its board of directors.[10]
In April 2014, Weebly raised $35 million in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Rusenko stated in August 2013 that the company signed a lease for a 36,000 square feet (3,300 m2) warehouse in San Francisco, based on an expectation of ongoing growth. The new office will house the majority of a global team of 600 employees in 2014 when it moves into the property. As of August 25, 2013, Weebly had 80 employees and was based in an 11,000 square feet (1,000 m2) space in the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco.[11]
In October 2015, Weebly announced it would open a Berlin office in late 2015/early 2016 to offer European-based support and marketing.[citation needed] In April 2016, Weebly integrated JotForm software on its services.[12] On October 1, 2015, Weebly Carbon was released to allow plugin integration among other features.
In 2016, Weebly began to focus in on its ecommerce offerings with the release of Weebly 4 and Weebly Promote, an integrated marketing tool.[13]
As more sellers began using the company, the company created features for one click taxes, integrations with Shippo to streamline the shipping process, Facebook Ad creator, integrated email marketing and lead capture, abandoned cart features, the release of Mobile 5.0 to help sellers run their store from anywhere and deep integrations with Square payment processing.
In early 2018, co-founder Dan Veltri left the company to pursue other interests. In January 2018, Weebly hired its first VP of Brand, Alexis Contos, and her hire marked the first time the 12 person executive team was 50% women and 50% men.
On April 26, 2018, Square, Inc. announced it would acquire Weebly for approximately $365 million in cash and stock.[14]
Product[edit]
Weebly's free online website creator uses a simple widget-based site builder that operates in the web browser.[15][16][17][18] All the site elements are drag-and-drop,[15][18] and it automatically generates a mobile version of each website.[16] Storage is unlimited, but the service restricts individual file sizes.[16] Consumers are given the option to have any url ending in .weebly.com, .com, .net, .org, .co, .info, or .us. (example.weebly.com)
Android and iPhone apps are available that allow users to monitor their website traffic statistics, update blog posts and respond to comments, and add or update products if the user has an e-commerce online store.[19][20] Basic features for blogging and e-Commerce are supported: as of 2018, site owners could develop simple stores with payments through either PayPal, Stripe or Authorize.net.[2] Users can choose to incorporate advertisements in their pages, and visitor statistics can be tracked through an in-house tracking tool or Google Analytics.[16] Weebly also has integrated newsletter marketing features.[21]
As of 2020, Weebly was offered in 15 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Turkish.[22]
Public relations and sponsorship[edit]
In April 2012, Weebly co-sponsored a hackathon hosted by Pennsylvania State University titled the 'PSUhackathon.'[23] Rusenko and Fanini, who are both alumni of the College of Information Sciences and Technology, spoke at and judged the event.
Awards and recognition[edit]
TIME listed Weebly among the 50 Best Websites of 2007.[15] In 2011, Business Insider included Weebly into its '15 Cool New Apps That Are Crushing It On Chrome' list.[24] Also in 2011, David Rusenko, Weebly's CEO and co-founder, earned a spot in Forbes' '30 Under 30: social/mobile' list.[25]
Censorship[edit]
In December 2014, the Indian government blocked Weebly in India, due to fears that ISIS propaganda was being spread through the site.[26] On December 31, the site was again made available throughout India.[27]
Weebly also applies censorship to its availability with a wide selection of geoblocked countries where Weebly is unavailable to internet users. Site owners are unable to login from these geoblocked locations to administer the site just as internet users cannot reach the site. According to Weebly official support forum, the exact list of blocked countries is secret, but the employees confirmed blocking of Côte d'Ivoire, Iran, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, as well as much of Middle East, West and Central Africa.[28]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Ha, Anthony (April 26, 2018). 'Square is acquiring website builder Weebly for $365M'. TechCrunch. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^ abGagliordi, Natalie (April 26, 2018). 'Square buys website builder Weebly for $365 million'. ZDNet. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^ abcdLevy, Steven (May 20, 2007). 'A Boot Camp for the Next Tech Billionaires'. Newsweek. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Guynn, Jessica (June 10, 2008). 'Weeblies aren't wobbling'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Veltri, Dan (June 29, 2006). 'Exciting Developments' (Press release). Weebly. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^'Weebly private-beta launch' (Press release). Weebly. September 12, 2006. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^ abRobinson, Blake (May 9, 2007). 'Weebly Launches blog Platform, Closes $650K Investment'. TechCrunch. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Adewumi, David (June 10, 2008). 'Weebly, a Simple web page creator,launches Adsense feature and pro accounts'. Venture Beat. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Ha, Anthony (February 24, 2010). 'Simple website builder Weebly goes international'. VentureBeat. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Botha, Roelof. 'Weebly: What we do'. SEQUOIA Capital. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Empson, Rip (25 August 2013). 'As Wix Heads Toward IPO, Weebly Looks To Expand With Big New SF Headquarters, Plans To Add 500+ Employees'. TechCrunch. AOL Inc. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
- ^Roy, Rohit (1 April 2016). 'Weebly Users Gain Access to Easy-to-use Form-Creator JotForm'. Martech Advisor.
- ^'How Weebly 4 Is Leading An E-commerce Revolution'. www.forbes.com. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
- ^'Square to Acquire Weebly'. Square, Inc. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
- ^ abcMary Murray Buner (July 8, 2007). '50 Best Websites 2007'. TIME Specials. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
- ^ abcdWeebly,Inc (September 19, 2012). 'Weebly'. iTunes Store. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Johnston, Mike (July 6, 2012). 'Weebly Review-The Website Builder that makes Web Design Fun'. CMS Critic. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^ abRussell, Kate (February 15, 2008). 'Webscape'. BBC News. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^'iPhone and Android Apps'. Weebly. Retrieved 27 April 2014.
- ^'12 Best Free Website Builders'. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
- ^Williams, Alex (January 9, 2020). '10 Best Website Builders (UK) in 2020'. hostingdata.co.uk. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^'Company Info'. Weebly. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^PSUhackathon (April 27, 2012). 'Sponsorship & Judges'. /psuhackathon.com. Archived from the original on April 27, 2012. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Hamburger, Ellis (May 17, 2011). '15 Cool New Apps That Are Crushing It On Chrome'. Business Insider. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
- ^'30 Under 30:Social/Mobile'. Forbes. 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
- ^Stone, Jeff. 'Vimeo, DailyMotion, Pastebin Among Sites Blocked In India For 'Anti-India' Content From ISIS'. International Business Times.
- ^Sharma, Ravi (January 2, 2015). 'Indian government unblocks Vimeo, Dailymotion, 2 other websites'. The Times of India.
- ^'Weebly doesn't work in Russia'.
External links[edit]
- Official website
Weebly is an excellent, easy to use website builder that is also going through a transition.
Any review of Weebly in 2020 should begin with this fact: Weebly is currently maintaining two different editors for creating websites: the Weebly editor and the Square editor.
Existing users will be familiar with the Weebly editor. It's an excellent, easy to use editor that Weebly suggests is best for customized, non-ecommerce websites:
But then there is the new Square editor. It's significantly less flexible but a bit easier to use. It's meant for ecommerce websites.
The Weebly editor is still an excellent, easy to use editor. In the past I've given it a perfect 5 stars.
The Square editor is limited. It has more in common with GoDaddy than it does Squarespace or Wix. Despite it's limitations, Weebly has told me they 'prefer to shift traffic to [the Square editor].' And while the Square editor may one day be great, it's not there yet.
Note: Square is not Squarespace. Squarespace is a seperate company. This can get confusing.
Note: My work is supported by affiliate commissions. Read more »
The Weebly Editor
Pages in the Weebly editor are built by dragging elements or sections from the side drawer into your page. Elements and sections are then edited within the page:
Pretty simple, right?
Now let's trying something a bit more complicated: watch below as I edit a background image. Notice how parts of the interface slide out and the background image editor slides? Weebly's interface is modular— it moves in and out depending on the task. This keeps the interface from becoming unnecessarily cluttered and overwhelming. It's a trick you'll find often in the Weebly editor.
What Happened To Weebly
You might not notice Weebly's modular interface when you're using it— it's pretty subtle. But it's these details that make Weebly so easy to use. By comparison watch how overwhelming Wix's interface becomes when editing a background:
Weebly offers around 70 themes— which is less than Wix and about the same as Squarespace.
In terms of quality, Weebly's themes are better than Wix but not quite as good as Squarespace (Squarespace has the best themes of any website builder).
Here are a few example Weebly themes:
Weebly Careers
You can get access to more themes by using Weebly's old themes but don't bother using them— they're not responsive. If you are desperate for a wider theme selection you could always try a 3rd party theme provider like Mojo Marketplace— Weebly themes cost around $49 there.
Theme customization in Weebly has always been limited.
It's easy enough to customize fonts…
You can customize these fonts.
…But there are few choices for customizing the colors of your website. You choose one color that gets applied in several different places— for example, it's applied to the color of buttons and the active navigation. You can't customize where or how it is applied.
About Weebly.com
I also wasn't able to change the color of my footer without editing code— which feels like an unnecessary limitation.
You can't choose a custom background color for the footer.
One interesting part of the Weebly editor is the App Center. The App Center lets you install apps that add new elements and features to your Weebly website.
Weebly's App Center.
Weebly Website Reviews
Formal development of Weebly began in January 2006.[4] The invitational beta release was announced in June 2006.[5] The official private-beta launched in September 2006.[6]
In January 2007, Weebly was selected for Y Combinator's winter startup program.[3]
In March 2007, Weebly re-launched with its 'WYSIWYG' editing interface.[7] Also in 2007, Weebly raised a US$650,000 financing round from several angel investors, including Ron Conway, Steve Anderson, Mike Maples, and Paul Buchheit.[3][7]
In 2008 Weebly added 'Pro' accounts and Google AdSense monetization features, as well as compatibility with Google Chrome and Safari.[8]
During its initial startup years, Weebly received criticism for its lack of CSS/HTML editing support, and in 2009 added this functionality. In 2010, the company added French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese languages.[9]
In 2011, Weebly raised a growth-stage round from Sequoia Capital and added Roelof Botha to its board of directors.[10]
In April 2014, Weebly raised $35 million in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Rusenko stated in August 2013 that the company signed a lease for a 36,000 square feet (3,300 m2) warehouse in San Francisco, based on an expectation of ongoing growth. The new office will house the majority of a global team of 600 employees in 2014 when it moves into the property. As of August 25, 2013, Weebly had 80 employees and was based in an 11,000 square feet (1,000 m2) space in the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco.[11]
In October 2015, Weebly announced it would open a Berlin office in late 2015/early 2016 to offer European-based support and marketing.[citation needed] In April 2016, Weebly integrated JotForm software on its services.[12] On October 1, 2015, Weebly Carbon was released to allow plugin integration among other features.
In 2016, Weebly began to focus in on its ecommerce offerings with the release of Weebly 4 and Weebly Promote, an integrated marketing tool.[13]
As more sellers began using the company, the company created features for one click taxes, integrations with Shippo to streamline the shipping process, Facebook Ad creator, integrated email marketing and lead capture, abandoned cart features, the release of Mobile 5.0 to help sellers run their store from anywhere and deep integrations with Square payment processing.
In early 2018, co-founder Dan Veltri left the company to pursue other interests. In January 2018, Weebly hired its first VP of Brand, Alexis Contos, and her hire marked the first time the 12 person executive team was 50% women and 50% men.
On April 26, 2018, Square, Inc. announced it would acquire Weebly for approximately $365 million in cash and stock.[14]
Product[edit]
Weebly's free online website creator uses a simple widget-based site builder that operates in the web browser.[15][16][17][18] All the site elements are drag-and-drop,[15][18] and it automatically generates a mobile version of each website.[16] Storage is unlimited, but the service restricts individual file sizes.[16] Consumers are given the option to have any url ending in .weebly.com, .com, .net, .org, .co, .info, or .us. (example.weebly.com)
Android and iPhone apps are available that allow users to monitor their website traffic statistics, update blog posts and respond to comments, and add or update products if the user has an e-commerce online store.[19][20] Basic features for blogging and e-Commerce are supported: as of 2018, site owners could develop simple stores with payments through either PayPal, Stripe or Authorize.net.[2] Users can choose to incorporate advertisements in their pages, and visitor statistics can be tracked through an in-house tracking tool or Google Analytics.[16] Weebly also has integrated newsletter marketing features.[21]
As of 2020, Weebly was offered in 15 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Turkish.[22]
Public relations and sponsorship[edit]
In April 2012, Weebly co-sponsored a hackathon hosted by Pennsylvania State University titled the 'PSUhackathon.'[23] Rusenko and Fanini, who are both alumni of the College of Information Sciences and Technology, spoke at and judged the event.
Awards and recognition[edit]
TIME listed Weebly among the 50 Best Websites of 2007.[15] In 2011, Business Insider included Weebly into its '15 Cool New Apps That Are Crushing It On Chrome' list.[24] Also in 2011, David Rusenko, Weebly's CEO and co-founder, earned a spot in Forbes' '30 Under 30: social/mobile' list.[25]
Censorship[edit]
In December 2014, the Indian government blocked Weebly in India, due to fears that ISIS propaganda was being spread through the site.[26] On December 31, the site was again made available throughout India.[27]
Weebly also applies censorship to its availability with a wide selection of geoblocked countries where Weebly is unavailable to internet users. Site owners are unable to login from these geoblocked locations to administer the site just as internet users cannot reach the site. According to Weebly official support forum, the exact list of blocked countries is secret, but the employees confirmed blocking of Côte d'Ivoire, Iran, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, as well as much of Middle East, West and Central Africa.[28]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Ha, Anthony (April 26, 2018). 'Square is acquiring website builder Weebly for $365M'. TechCrunch. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^ abGagliordi, Natalie (April 26, 2018). 'Square buys website builder Weebly for $365 million'. ZDNet. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^ abcdLevy, Steven (May 20, 2007). 'A Boot Camp for the Next Tech Billionaires'. Newsweek. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Guynn, Jessica (June 10, 2008). 'Weeblies aren't wobbling'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Veltri, Dan (June 29, 2006). 'Exciting Developments' (Press release). Weebly. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^'Weebly private-beta launch' (Press release). Weebly. September 12, 2006. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^ abRobinson, Blake (May 9, 2007). 'Weebly Launches blog Platform, Closes $650K Investment'. TechCrunch. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Adewumi, David (June 10, 2008). 'Weebly, a Simple web page creator,launches Adsense feature and pro accounts'. Venture Beat. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Ha, Anthony (February 24, 2010). 'Simple website builder Weebly goes international'. VentureBeat. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Botha, Roelof. 'Weebly: What we do'. SEQUOIA Capital. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Empson, Rip (25 August 2013). 'As Wix Heads Toward IPO, Weebly Looks To Expand With Big New SF Headquarters, Plans To Add 500+ Employees'. TechCrunch. AOL Inc. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
- ^Roy, Rohit (1 April 2016). 'Weebly Users Gain Access to Easy-to-use Form-Creator JotForm'. Martech Advisor.
- ^'How Weebly 4 Is Leading An E-commerce Revolution'. www.forbes.com. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
- ^'Square to Acquire Weebly'. Square, Inc. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
- ^ abcMary Murray Buner (July 8, 2007). '50 Best Websites 2007'. TIME Specials. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
- ^ abcdWeebly,Inc (September 19, 2012). 'Weebly'. iTunes Store. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^Johnston, Mike (July 6, 2012). 'Weebly Review-The Website Builder that makes Web Design Fun'. CMS Critic. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^ abRussell, Kate (February 15, 2008). 'Webscape'. BBC News. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
- ^'iPhone and Android Apps'. Weebly. Retrieved 27 April 2014.
- ^'12 Best Free Website Builders'. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
- ^Williams, Alex (January 9, 2020). '10 Best Website Builders (UK) in 2020'. hostingdata.co.uk. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^'Company Info'. Weebly. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^PSUhackathon (April 27, 2012). 'Sponsorship & Judges'. /psuhackathon.com. Archived from the original on April 27, 2012. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ^Hamburger, Ellis (May 17, 2011). '15 Cool New Apps That Are Crushing It On Chrome'. Business Insider. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
- ^'30 Under 30:Social/Mobile'. Forbes. 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
- ^Stone, Jeff. 'Vimeo, DailyMotion, Pastebin Among Sites Blocked In India For 'Anti-India' Content From ISIS'. International Business Times.
- ^Sharma, Ravi (January 2, 2015). 'Indian government unblocks Vimeo, Dailymotion, 2 other websites'. The Times of India.
- ^'Weebly doesn't work in Russia'.
External links[edit]
- Official website
Weebly is an excellent, easy to use website builder that is also going through a transition.
Any review of Weebly in 2020 should begin with this fact: Weebly is currently maintaining two different editors for creating websites: the Weebly editor and the Square editor.
Existing users will be familiar with the Weebly editor. It's an excellent, easy to use editor that Weebly suggests is best for customized, non-ecommerce websites:
But then there is the new Square editor. It's significantly less flexible but a bit easier to use. It's meant for ecommerce websites.
The Weebly editor is still an excellent, easy to use editor. In the past I've given it a perfect 5 stars.
The Square editor is limited. It has more in common with GoDaddy than it does Squarespace or Wix. Despite it's limitations, Weebly has told me they 'prefer to shift traffic to [the Square editor].' And while the Square editor may one day be great, it's not there yet.
Note: Square is not Squarespace. Squarespace is a seperate company. This can get confusing.
Note: My work is supported by affiliate commissions. Read more »
The Weebly Editor
Pages in the Weebly editor are built by dragging elements or sections from the side drawer into your page. Elements and sections are then edited within the page:
Pretty simple, right?
Now let's trying something a bit more complicated: watch below as I edit a background image. Notice how parts of the interface slide out and the background image editor slides? Weebly's interface is modular— it moves in and out depending on the task. This keeps the interface from becoming unnecessarily cluttered and overwhelming. It's a trick you'll find often in the Weebly editor.
What Happened To Weebly
You might not notice Weebly's modular interface when you're using it— it's pretty subtle. But it's these details that make Weebly so easy to use. By comparison watch how overwhelming Wix's interface becomes when editing a background:
Weebly offers around 70 themes— which is less than Wix and about the same as Squarespace.
In terms of quality, Weebly's themes are better than Wix but not quite as good as Squarespace (Squarespace has the best themes of any website builder).
Here are a few example Weebly themes:
Weebly Careers
You can get access to more themes by using Weebly's old themes but don't bother using them— they're not responsive. If you are desperate for a wider theme selection you could always try a 3rd party theme provider like Mojo Marketplace— Weebly themes cost around $49 there.
Theme customization in Weebly has always been limited.
It's easy enough to customize fonts…
You can customize these fonts.
…But there are few choices for customizing the colors of your website. You choose one color that gets applied in several different places— for example, it's applied to the color of buttons and the active navigation. You can't customize where or how it is applied.
About Weebly.com
I also wasn't able to change the color of my footer without editing code— which feels like an unnecessary limitation.
You can't choose a custom background color for the footer.
One interesting part of the Weebly editor is the App Center. The App Center lets you install apps that add new elements and features to your Weebly website.
Weebly's App Center.
Weebly Website Reviews
Some apps are free and some are paid:
Is Weebly Good
| APP | PRICE | WHAT IT DOES |
|---|---|---|
| Multilanguage | $3 / month | Add pages in multiple languages that visitors can swap between. |
| Paid Members | $10 - $30 / month | Create a paid subscription, membership site (for example: selling an online course) |
| Simple Table | Free | Adds a table element for building tables. |
Weebly Blog Tutorial
Theoretically the App Center is an ecosystem for 3rd party developers. But in practice it's mostly just apps created by Weebly. For example, there isn't even an email subscription box from Mailchimp or Constant Contact— the most popular email newsletter providers. In this way the App Center isn't comparable to Wordpress Plugins or Shopify's App Store.
