April 13, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Internet portal and Web hosting provider Yahoo! (yahoo.com) announced on Wednesday that it will give free five-page Web sites to small businesses that list with Yahoo! Local.
“As more and more consumers rely on the Internet for information about their neighborhood – from finding restaurants to plumbers to dry cleaners – local businesses are realizing the value of reaching potential customers online,” says Paul Levine, general manager of Yahoo! Local.
Yahoo! says customers can use its templates to build Web sites in approximately 10 minutes. The new Web sites will then be automatically integrated into Yahoo! Local, extending businesses’ reach to users of Yahoo!’s search services.
Analysts speculate that Yahoo! eventually will target these free subscribers for its domain name registration and paid Web hosting services.
The service is available in beta at local.yahoo.com/freesite
