Google Sites Web Design News

Intro Google Next 2017 and a flurry of updates to Google Suite have provided some new discoveries concerning Google Sites. We all know the transition is here from Classic to New Sites, but the vision and roadmap have no been as clear. Will the New Google Sites become the product for the corporate portal, hub and team site? New evidence suggests the answer is yes. Here's why... Recent Discoveries: Work hacks from G Suite: a new corporate training regimen (no weights required) https://blog.google/products/g-suite/work-hacks-g-suite-new-corporate-training-regimen-no-weights-required/ This article, published on March 23, 2017, makes a strong case for New Sites as a viable employee handbook, onboarding hub, training center, etc. They even made this cute little gif for us. Obviously team drives create a central place within Google Drive for teams to collaborate and share files. Those pop-in nice and easy within a Google Site.  They also noted the responsiveness of New Sites fo...

It's coming together, my new Kirksville Web Design website built entirely on the New Google Sites engine. I'm building my faith that this will be worth investing in. Obviously the sites look great and are quick and easy to build, but the limitations and lacking features make it difficult for these "sandbox sites" to come to life.  I look forward to the big reveal with you all, and right now I'm doing my part to get ready for when public web address mapping comes out. Google Sites SEO will be a major concern with the New Google Sites though.  Just so you all know, I'm also building a fair share of Squarespace sites right now. At first I was only building Squarespace sites for Ecommerce, but now it has garnered more of my attention until New Sites is ready for prime time. I simply can't wait and twiddle my thumbs as a freelancer. Don't get me wrong, Classic Sites is still excellent for intranets, but Squarespace is my transitional platform and ...

Have you played with the New Google Sites? If you have, you may be noticing some missing key features. According to the Google Sites Help Forum (https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/sites/NXcBWrvLq2c) here are some top requests and what the Google Sites team is working on, thankfully: Publish to a group Obviously permissions is an important part of Google Sites. You may want to share you site with the whole world or just a small group of associates. Contact groups are nice to share to as well, since that group can be flexible and change. Customize logo Just text won't cut it for long. We want to brand these sites don't we. I don't exactly understand the need to limit us to a few colors and few fonts. =/ Copy a page/section Makes sense. Map to a domain Hugely important both for internal usage and external. We want to easily navigate to these sites. Search within a Site I don't know why this wasn't built in first thing. This alone will limit us to sma...

Google has announced via email that the new Google Sites is coming November 9th, 2016. Here are my recommendations for classic sites users the world over. Public Websites As far as I know, and this may change in the release, New Google Sites cannot be mapped to a custom domain. That makes getting to a New Google Site impossible with a nice www.example.com web address. This is a deal-breaker right now until the feature is available. Intranets Google has said and it is still the case, that New Google Sites is very basic, only capable of small project sites. Therefore, your large intranets, your functional hubs, your wikis, those just aren't ready to be built in the New Sites. Right now, you can only build pages in two levels. Page & Subpage. Navigation is limited to say the least. Again, this is a major roadblock to large sites. Also, many gadgets just aren't available yet, so if you want extra functions outside G Suite or Awesome Tables, you'll have to wait. ...

The New Google Sites is beginning an early adopter, beta like stage. Get information from us on what's new. What is the difference between these two products? Should you choose to make a Google Site in the Classic or New mode? View the full news article View the side by side comparison New Google Sites Early Adopter Program

We have been designing many Google Sites these past few months. Kirksville Web Design has a new initiative to always use the responsive web design feature of Google Sites, known as the "Automatically adjust to Mobile" feature. This results in a few design limitations, but a lot of benefits for web property owners, including SEO page rank points.  As you may know, you have two backgrounds to play with in Google Sites: 1) Background Image and 2) Background Wrapper Image. The wrapper image has a higher z-index, meaning it is layer on top of the background image. You also have background color at your disposal. We've been designing for a lot of schools lately, which is wonderful. We have a bunch of samples here in this Google Doc. All Google Sites. www.villagedermatologyhouston.com www.carlmccain.org www.creeksidecoffeecompany.com www.drummondschool.org www.littlefishlighting.com

Hello everyone. I was googling around Google Sites information and stumbled upon the work of Neil Creagh - A New Vision for Google Sites . Neil said it well: Massive potential What ever happened to Google Sites? With new template designs and a new CMS interface, the potential reach of Google Sites could be huge. By removing a lot of the hurdles and costs associated with creating a small business or personal website, Google Sites would be in a really strong position to very quickly become the go-to place for SMEs and individuals who require a new website. Rumors come and go about Google Sites. With a huge gap in updates, perhaps the direction has been to completely rebuild the system. After all, since transitioned from JotSpot Web Pages, they have probably been groaning with developing on this out-dated platform. Also, with other platforms, CMS, like Squarespace, Wix, and a large number of no-code easy web builders, the expectations for Google would be much higher. ...

Explore 5 Unique Google Sites designed and developed for schools. We promote Google Sites for Edu on our website too.  Enjoy these Google Sites examples for your inspiration.  More of the Best Google Sites Examples for Intranet and Public Websites in our Google Doc. Bowman Charter School https://sites.google.com/a/kirksvillewebdesign.com/bowman/ Del Oro High School https://sites.google.com/a/kirksvillewebdesign.com/del-oro Glide School District https://sites.google.com/a/kirksvillewebdesign.com/glide-schools/ Oakland Unified School District http://www.everystudentthrives.org/ Placer Hills Union School District https://sites.google.com/a/kirksvillewebdesign.com/phusd/

Intro : In Google Apps for Work, in the past, you could only web address map a Google Sites to a subdomain of the primary domain. Let me explain: You run Google Apps for the Primary Domain:  kirksvillewebdesign.com You want to launch a new site on your Alias/Secondary Domain: googlesitesintranet.net This was impossible unless you moved your Google Site off of Google Apps completely and into the free Google Sites/Gmail world. You lose the security, extra hosting space, and other benefits. Update: Here's what Google had to say in a very recently update: Complex businesses can require multiple Google Apps domain instances to meet their needs. Previously, certain domain management functionality was restricted to primary domains only, making managing multiple domains a bit cumbersome. With today’s launch, we’re extending several key features to secondary domains to make managing multiple domain instances more seamless: Web address mapping ―have your Google Sites appe...

About Mobile and Responsive Web Design in Google Sites Google has produced a Mobile Friendly Test where Google will Analyze your site and determine if it is "mobile friendly" or not. This is somewhat subjective in the age now of Phablets (tablet sized phones) and ever increasing screen sizes (think iPhone 6 plus). https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly Two Approaches 1. Design for Google Sites Automatic Mobile Adjustment (located in Settings > General > Adjust Site for Mobile) Example:  http://www.sitestemplate.net/business-templates  (see Mobile Ready Material Design template) The only way for a Google Site to "pass" the Mobile Friendly test is with this approach. However, the test does not care about how things actually look on your site. All it notices to whether you have the "Automatically adjust" setting on. Be Careful! Sometimes this can make your site look much worse on a mobile phone. 2. Design for scaling to a...

The New Google Sites Icon It is no mystery that Google Inc. has a new material design direction . The first revised icon I noticed was Google Maps, but now Google Sites, my favorite application has received some love. Google Material Design Example - Could this be an upcoming Sites UX? What can we glean from this new treatment? This is really a game of comparison. Take a look at the old Google Sites icon below. The first thing I noticed is a full browser experience. Web building platforms like Squarespace has been flaunting this for years. A contemporary, full width, ultimately response experience. Could this be the new future of Google Sites? Obviously there is a lot of speculation that can be done. I can't wait for the Google Apps for Work site to be refreshed and maybe we'll learn even more. What do you think? The Google Sites Icon used to be this.

Date : 9/22 - 9/25 The Gooru , the number one resource site for Google Apps, announced gCON , an online event giving Google Apps administrators and end users the information they need to make day to day tasks in Google Apps easier. Held over four days exclusively through Hangouts on Air, gCON will bring together experienced IT professionals, power users and third-party experts for in-depth training covering a range of topics from optimizing Google Drive to getting the most out of Gmail. The Gooru is partnering with leading third-party solution providers in the ecosystem including FlashPanel , Esna , AODocs , Virtru , Spanning , Insightly , Smartsheet and Zendesk to bring gCON to Google Apps users around the world. gCON attendees will receive a free gCON t-shirt, a chance to become gCON Certified for Google Apps and will be registered to win giveaways including Nexus 5, Moto 360, Bose Headphones, Samsung Chromebook 2 and more. For more information and to register for training sessio...

How it works For the Hangout Web Conference there are two fields: Emails Profile IDs Email: Self-explanatory, your Google Email account. Profile ID: Check your Google + URL. Mine is KyleHorst, because my Profile on Google Plus URL is https://plus.google.com/+KyleHorst .  The + symbol is not needed in the field. For the Phone Call Button Just your phone number, no spaces, dashes, parentheses, etc. Have fun with this new Google Sites update! Love it!

Intro I'm still testing out these Google Sites updates. However, in the interest of keeping you all informed on the current build of Google Sites, I am posting the updates for you now. Improved accessibility, editing and ease of use in Google Sites Several accessibility improvements have been made to Google Sites, ranging from new keyboard shortcuts for editors (like Alt+Shift+F for opening the editor toolbar) to better viewing experiences for readers. Editors can now also set image width to 100% of the screen width and easily customize the font, color, and size of lower-level headers (H2, H3, and H4 tags).* Source: http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2014/06/improved-accessibility-editing-and-ease.html Enhanced integration between Google Sites and other products Today we launched several features aimed at improving integration between Google Sites and other products. When sharing on social media sites, Google Sites now will showcase images in posts. You’ll see this cha...

Introduction Google Sites commenting has been a nice feature since it started using a Google Plus type format. The commenting feature, however, was restricted to Google Site owners and editors. It was a feature for viewers to use and for more general comments to be given. This, in effect, made it an awkward feature since the purpose was muddled. Anyways, people developed work arounds using Disqus and other Google Apps Script solutions. Now, let me introduce new and improved viewer commenting capability. Please note, viewer commenting does not mean public  commenting. It is still the case the you cannot enable commenting for the random visitor to leave a comment on your page (leave that to your blog). Please note, this feature is only available for Google Apps customers. Enabling Viewer Commenting As a Google Apps administrator, you can allow authenticated viewers in your domain to comment on your Google Apps Sites to make your sites more social. Viewer commenting is ...

I wanted to make sure I personally invited you to this round of Admin Training Week. I also wanted to let you know that this Admin Training Week will be very different than the last one: 9 presentations (3 more than last time) All new topics (no overlap from last time) Roundtable discussion with real Google Apps Admins Of course, there will still be some awesome freebies like last time (free t-shirt, eBook, sponsor offers), along with 9 different drawings for a Nexus 7! So, if you have time in your calendar on the 17th, 18th and 19th, it would be great to have you again for the next Admin Training Week. Register Here Hope to see you there!

The Security Issue It was not possible to secure your content by not allowing your entire site or webpages to be iframed. Anyone could iframe your site since you had no protection against it. The Update You can prevent others from iframing your Google Site. See the provision below: The Result If someone tries to iframe your site into another Google Site or elsewhere, it will just be a blank iframe. For some of us, this resulted in our iframed content going missing. Just check the box in Manage Site options to reenable for iframed content.

Google Gooru Admin Training Week Please join us Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week for our very first Google Gooru Admin Training Week! We'll be joined by several leading experts in the Google Apps community who will cover everything there is to know about managing Google Apps Register Here ---> Google Gooru's Admin Training Week Every session will be held via Hangout on Air, so anyone is welcome to attend. You can register for each event below...see you tomorrow! April 22nd - Admin Console and Apps Script April 23rd - Google Drive and FlashPanel April 24th - Google Sites and Mobile Device Management  with  +Kyle Horst

We reached a new goal in the Google Apps Marketplace as +Kirksville Web Design  . We are the most reviewed, highly rated Google Sites designer on the entire Marketplace. As our title mentions, we have 85 positive reviews for our design services using just Google Sites. Here are our three most recent reviews from April, 2014: Will Use Again  by Ismael Amado with Flagship Inc. April 09, 2014 Kirksville Web Design was able to help us realize our goal of using google sites as a replacement for our aging sharepoint system. The designs were clean, elegant, and easy to use. Will not hesitate to engage Kyle and his team again if/when the need arises. Great Experience  by Dane Deutsch with DCS Netlink April 08, 2014 Very satisfied with our experience with Kirksville Web Design! Great service, and outstanding ability to understand the customer needs, from the planning to the design and content aspects of their web page. Kyle is a team player who works in a very relaxed and conf...

More Button Just a simple change of user experience. The More Button, as we all called it, is now a more commonly seen gear or cog icon. Therefore it gives the impression of Global Settings. Pop-up Disclaimer You've probably seen this initial website load-up shadow boxes. Well now Google Sites has one. Right now it is text only and is optional. There you go, just two quick updates that I've seen come through. Is this a weekly thing now? Thanks Google Sites team.

Intro We love to see Google Sites updates come along, don't we? I am happy to report of three updates to Google Sites: File Cabinet Sorting & Collapse Folders Ability Canonical Web Addresses Embed a Google Plus post These have each rolled out individually over the past month or two (sorry for not updating you sooner!) Let's discuss each update, how it impacts Google Sites and why you should care. File Cabinet Sorting & Collapse Folders Ability This feature is the newest and can be useful for those of you still using the File Cabinet page template, as opposed to embedding multiple Google Drive Folders. Essentially here's what you do: Go to More Page Settings There you will see: Collapse folders by default Show column headers This is only available on File Cabinet type pages. To setup as a File Cabinet (webpage template is the default). Do this: More Change Page Template Choose File Cabinet This is a nice feature, but I question as to t...

Interviewer: +Kyle Horst , Owner, Kirksville Web Design Interviewee: +David Spangler , Google Apps Solutions Architect, Appirio How is Appirio offering Google Sites? Appirio has partnered with Kirksville Web Design for a number of Google Sites projects, ranging from Corporate Intranet design to POC (Proof of Concept) demo sites. In addition, we’ve been working on solutions to assist customers with moving away from heavy, premised-based intranet systems (like SharePoint) by leveraging the Google Enterprise suite focused on a combination of Google Sites and Google Drive capabilities. The designers at Kirksville Web Design are able to deliver an exciting product that fits within the frameworks of Google Sites. Can you describe some of your Sites projects? What were the results? In our work with a large, multi-national pharmaceutical organization, we partnered with Kirksville to provide a revamp of their Google Apps launch site. The site was a rebuild/rethink away from their le...

Hello Everyone. This is just a quick reminder of the importance of user feedback and input on surveys. If you have a suggestion, concern or gripe with Google Sites, the "Take our survey!" option is the best way you've got to do so. It's your way to talk to the Google Sites team. Therefore, please take the survey. Suggest something amazing like adding a tagging system to Google Sites, more usable themes or viewer commenting / login function. I'm not sure if this link will work for long or for everyone, but here's a shot: https://survey.googleratings.com/wix/p3925964.aspx Click on this image to take a survey now. Thanks!

Hello Everybody!  +Kyle Horst  here with a great new set of updates to Google Sites. 2014 won't be the year Sites is left in the lurch. So let's cover these two new features. 1. Copy Page Creating a Page Template using the "Save as Page Template" feature was alright, but Copy Page makes the process that much easier and less of an investment. Copying a page is right in the More dropdown menu next to Move Page and Print Page. 2. Open Navigation Link in a New Window The navigation gadget received an upgrade with the new "open this link in a new window" checkbox option. It is part of the Add URL (not add page) option in the configure navigation windows. This is great for opening external website in a new tab or window, since you don't always want visitor to navigate away from your site. Great for intranet usage! That wraps this episode up of Google Sites' new features. Let me know if I missed anything of course. Thanks!

Interview with Chris White, Executive Director at America’s Best Cleaners by Kyle Horst, Kirksville Web Design Tell us a bit about America’s Best Cleaners and its Going Google. America’s Best Cleaners is a nationally recognized independent certification mark for the drycleaning industry. Affiliates are certified on an annual basis and once certified work together to share the best business practices in the industry. Our affiliates make up the best of the best in the industry and represent over 92 million dollars in gross revenue. The affiliation is spread throughout the United States with several international affiliates and industry experts sharing information and in depth discussions. With over 60 individual users at any one time and constantly growing we needed a platform that was universally accepted and easy to implement to share sensitive business data, discussions, images and all other forms of collaboration outlets with our affiliates How is America’s Best C...