Who hosts your personal website?

[surefire]

Hi there!

 

I had a good look around the forums but pretty much just turned up - it's totally helpful, but I'm still interested in surveying the GC and maybe generating resources here for others.

 

Do people have any experiences/preferences with any of the following, for hosting a tiny academic-ish personal website (bio/CV/research interests/links to papers)?:

 

Weebly

Wix

Reclaim Hosting

 

While I can code, I'd prefer to go with the ease of a drag-and-drop website builder like these. The persistent ads on Wix aren't endearing. As well, I'm wondering how unprofessional it would be to go with Wix or Weebly and have these companies names in my URL (granted, the benefit is that these options are free, and the reality is that I'm not looking at the prospect of oodles of traffic). And regarding the URL: I have a domain name through my grad institution that has the name of said institution and my name in it - is it worth transferring this domain to one of these hosts (I've only got it as long as I'm a student) or would it be better to just get a domain in my own name (keeping in mind, neither of these options are free with these hosts)?

 

I'm leaning towards Reclaim, which seems to have the ease factor and, while not free, is very reasonable priced. Does anyone have thoughts?

 

While I've got you here, I'm wondering where people generally stand on some of the prominent professional networking sites:

 

LinkedIn

Academia.edu

ResearchGate

 

Are you guys on just one of these sites, or several? Do you have this in tandem with a personal webpage? What do you link to from your department page (personal website or networking one)?

I have LinkedIn and, while I kind of hate it, it occasionally proves a necessary evil. The user agreement for Academia.edu legit scares the pants off me, so I'm not inclined to join it, but perhaps I'm overly skittish. ResearchGate is somewhat entrancing, but I'm not sure that it's popular in my networks.

 

Again, do people have thoughts? Or experiences with some of these either on their own or in tandem? Am I missing any fundamental options or considerations?

 

Thanks so much guys!

[beccamayworth]

What's in the user agreement for academia.edu that scares you? I'm curious I have a profile there, I actually like it a lot; there are a lot of researchers I'm interested in that make their articles available there. But I don't remember seeing anything scary, maybe I didn't look enough?

 

I have a website on google sites. It's free and easy. It doesn't look amazing, but I just wanted a simple interface to put myself out there. At some point I might migrate to something hosted by my school.

[eragon]

I like google sites. Its simple and easy. It has the basic themes and look is normal.

[TakeruK]

My research website is hosted on my current department's web server. I built it from a free template and then edited it with a combination of WYISWYG editors (free ones since I can't afford Dreamweaver or Muse) and directly editing the CSS/HTML source code. 

 

My opinion is that one should not use a free commercial host like Wix or Weebly for their research website and one should definitely not have any advertisements on their website! If you cannot get reliable web hosting from your department, there are some pretty cheap options to purchase your own domain name. 

 

I feel like ResearchGate and Academia.edu are not very useful. I constantly get requests from random people in my inbox that goes to spam or gets deleted immediately. LinkedIn is probably more useful because it's a more standard format and you can use it for non-academic job hunting. I don't have profiles on any of these sites though. However, I do have a Google Scholar profile, and it is nice because it automatically finds and adds papers I author/co-author and I don't have to update it myself

[Monochrome Spring]

I have a linkedin, academia.edu, and researchgate, but I don't ever update them. I link them to the Weebly personal website that I update regularly.

 

There are a lot of labs in my subfield that use weebly, so I don't feel like it's unprofessional.

[surefire]

Thanks to everyone for the input! Some of the guidelines here seem to be good general take-aways while some other preferences seem very much dependent on the culture of fields/networks/institutions. It's good to know that there isn't "one right way" to conduct myself that I'm apparently oblivious to, so I can work to cobble together something that suits!

 

What's in the user agreement for academia.edu that scares you? I'm curious I have a profile there, I actually like it a lot; there are a lot of researchers I'm interested in that make their articles available there. But I don't remember seeing anything scary, maybe I didn't look enough?

 

I have a website on google sites. It's free and easy. It doesn't look amazing, but I just wanted a simple interface to put myself out there. At some point I might migrate to something hosted by my school.

 

The license and third party permission bits on Academia.edu raise my eyebrow a bit, particularly this passage:

 

"By making available any Member Content on or through the Site or Services, you hereby grant to Academia.edu a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, view, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site or Services."

 

As much as I would be amused to watch someone "perform" my stuffy legal research, this wording makes me uncomfortable. Further, despite the ".edu" at the end, this isn't an academic initiative or repository, it's a capital-based software business that seeks to make money trafficking in analytics and metrics - I may revisit the prospect in the future, but for now, I'd prefer alternatives!

 

I like google sites. Its simple and easy. It has the basic themes and look is normal.

 

I hadn't considered utilizing google sites, thanks to you and beccamayworth and TakeruK for that suggestion! I'll look into it!

 

My research website is hosted on my current department's web server. I built it from a free template and then edited it with a combination of WYISWYG editors (free ones since I can't afford Dreamweaver or Muse) and directly editing the CSS/HTML source code. 

 

My opinion is that one should not use a free commercial host like Wix or Weebly for their research website and one should definitely not have any advertisements on their website! If you cannot get reliable web hosting from your department, there are some pretty cheap options to purchase your own domain name. 

 

I feel like ResearchGate and Academia.edu are not very useful. I constantly get requests from random people in my inbox that goes to spam or gets deleted immediately. LinkedIn is probably more useful because it's a more standard format and you can use it for non-academic job hunting. I don't have profiles on any of these sites though. However, I do have a Google Scholar profile, and it is nice because it automatically finds and adds papers I author/co-author and I don't have to update it myself

 

The initial approach you describe is what I intended to do, and I have some access through some game designer friends to Dreamweaver, but I was reconsidering given that other host sites appeared very much inviting and I have zero eye for design and would be grateful for the templates that I've been assured are pleasing/professional to look at. So, I DO have hosting from my institution, but only as long as I'm a student and I'm on my own for actually building the thing. I thought that transferring it to one of these easy-build hosts would be a good compromise, but it occurs to me that the domain may be locked anyway. I'm grateful for your advice to purchase if one doesn't/can't go with department-hosting, I think I'll bite the bullet and do that, seeing as I'm three-years deep into the PhD already, it might be nice to cultivate something that won't threaten to vanish as I move towards defending (though I won't go through Wix or Weebly, they're a bit pricey considering that I wouldn't be taking advantage of the apps and such that are more amenable to business pages). And, as you say, the ads are kind of a deal-breaker (this is just Wix and they're just little sub-banner ones that say "This website powered by WIX, get your own website by clicking here!", but still, a deal-breaker). And Google Scholar is a good alternative to RG and Academia.edu, I'll look into that!

 

I have a linkedin, academia.edu, and researchgate, but I don't ever update them. I link them to the Weebly personal website that I update regularly.

 

There are a lot of labs in my subfield that use weebly, so I don't feel like it's unprofessional.

 

Thanks for your input on this! I do think it's wise to take the lead from other subfield people! I've had a more difficult time sussing out standard practice among my own colleagues!

 

Thanks again everyone, this is helpful!

[fuzzylogician]

I bought my own domain, http:// myname.com, after I graduated. I have a unique enough name that I can do this, and I like that it's not linked to any platform and doesn't depend on my university's servers, since they can be quite finicky, and anyway I've graduated, moved to a postdoc location, and expect to move again at least once or twice in the near future. It's nice to have something permanent and it's pretty cheap to buy a domain these days. I redirect there automatically from my university domain, so anyone who is looking for me directly or through the university can find me.

 

I have a minimal page on academia.edu that just says "see my academic webpage, <link>," or some such. I don't want to maintain multiple pages, and it's much easier and safer to just maintain my own domain. The only thing it's really useful for is telling me who googled me and what they were searching for, but actually google analytics can tell me a whole lot more based on visits to my website. It's a great way to waste time, if you were looking for one. I don't have an account with any other professional networking website.

[TakeruK]

I bought my own domain, http:// myname.com, after I graduated. I have a unique enough name that I can do this, and I like that it's not linked to any platform and doesn't depend on my university's servers, since they can be quite finicky, and anyway I've graduated, moved to a postdoc location, and expect to move again at least once or twice in the near future. It's nice to have something permanent and it's pretty cheap to buy a domain these days. I redirect there automatically from my university domain, so anyone who is looking for me directly or through the university can find me.

 

This is my plan after graduation since grad school will probably be the last time I will be in one place for so long (until landing some kind of permanent job I guess)!

[juilletmercredi]

I have been planning on building myself an academic website, and I was planning on going with Bluehost.  It does cost money (a cheap amount - about $3-4/month, although I found out that you have to pay the fee up front for something like 2-3 years, which I thought was misleading) but I've seen a lot of Weebly and Wix pages that I did not like.  With Bluehost you can use Wordpress and I just decided to do that.  I plan to get my own domain name.  (I had originally intended to build it this past summer, after I defended but before I started my postdoc, but there was minor drama with getting my defense schedule and I didn't have time.  Now my goal is summer 2015, before I go on the market.  We'll see.)

 

I do not like social media for business.  I think it's silly.  LinkedIn is at least marginally useful, in that sometimes I find people who do what i want to do and I look at their CVs.  I don't like ResearchGate.  I find it really annoying.  I've never used Academia.edu.  I don't understand why we can't all just network at conferneces, and then I feel like a geezer when I say that.

[surefire]

I bought my own domain, http:// myname.com, after I graduated. I have a unique enough name that I can do this, and I like that it's not linked to any platform and doesn't depend on my university's servers, since they can be quite finicky, and anyway I've graduated, moved to a postdoc location, and expect to move again at least once or twice in the near future. It's nice to have something permanent and it's pretty cheap to buy a domain these days. I redirect there automatically from my university domain, so anyone who is looking for me directly or through the university can find me.

 

I have a minimal page on academia.edu that just says "see my academic webpage, <link>," or some such. I don't want to maintain multiple pages, and it's much easier and safer to just maintain my own domain. The only thing it's really useful for is telling me who googled me and what they were searching for, but actually google analytics can tell me a whole lot more based on visits to my website. It's a great way to waste time, if you were looking for one. I don't have an account with any other professional networking website.

 

 

This is my plan after graduation since grad school will probably be the last time I will be in one place for so long (until landing some kind of permanent job I guess)!

 

Thanks to you both - you guys always provide reliably helpful, pragmatic advice! I like this notion of grasping at a bit of stability online via one's own domain name, given the general, commonly transient nature of scholarship that is to come post-graduation!

 

I have been planning on building myself an academic website, and I was planning on going with Bluehost.  It does cost money (a cheap amount - about $3-4/month, although I found out that you have to pay the fee up front for something like 2-3 years, which I thought was misleading) but I've seen a lot of Weebly and Wix pages that I did not like.  With Bluehost you can use Wordpress and I just decided to do that.  I plan to get my own domain name.  (I had originally intended to build it this past summer, after I defended but before I started my postdoc, but there was minor drama with getting my defense schedule and I didn't have time.  Now my goal is summer 2015, before I go on the market.  We'll see.)

 

I do not like social media for business.  I think it's silly.  LinkedIn is at least marginally useful, in that sometimes I find people who do what i want to do and I look at their CVs.  I don't like ResearchGate.  I find it really annoying.  I've never used Academia.edu.  I don't understand why we can't all just network at conferneces, and then I feel like a geezer when I say that.

 

I'll look into Bluehost! Regarding social media: I've actually come around a fair bit to using Twitter for networking and coordinating and striking up collaborations. Twitter seems to be especially useful in my own (sub)field though, where it's beneficial to follow legal feeds and social justice orgs whom draw attention to policy and news developments that don't always get picked up by the media broadly. It is also really useful to follow general developing conversations and the goings-on at conferences that I can't attend. That being said, I'm quite sick of this notion that one should have a presence on a litany of sites - I'd rather have just one that looks great and is well-maintained (and/or, as fuzzy suggests, maybe link to this main one through minimal presence on other things).

 

Thanks again for all the great advice here! I've been reading quite a bit of advice on other sites, but it's really helpful to know how others ACTUALLY conduct themselves!

[ritapita]

I have 12 websites, and don't know a single bit of code, except for how to make something bold.  I use weebly. Super easy drag and drop, and if you know code, you can do code. They recently raised their prices but are still cheaper than most.  I have been buying my domain names through bravenet for almost 10 years, and at 12.95 per year, they still are one of the cheapest.  Easy 2-step redirection as well.  if you would like to see my main site, please message me.

 

I also use linkedin and academia as well.  I'm still not too keen on linkedin put I'm drinking the koolaid and still wondering what the hype is about.