We’ve all seen the TV commercials offering a “Free Custom Website Design”. So as website designers and developers for almost 20 years we were eager to dig deeper into these offers and get to the real facts.

It turns out that “Free” usually involves a monthly fee and sometimes an annual obligation. In addition, upgrades for a fee are often needed to get to anything beyond the most simple of websites. So the old adage that “nothing is free” seems to apply, and once again advertisements use bait and switch techniques to lure in uninformed customers.

As for the second half of the offer for a “Free Custom Website Design” these website templates are far from a truly customized and branded website design and functionality. These “Free” cookie-cutter websites tend to all look somewhat the same, because they are. So called ‘customization’ often means simply placing your photos, logo and verbiage in predetermined locations with rigid dimensional requirements. In essence it’s similar to the way you can customize a Facebook page. Everyone gets the same fixed banner and logo box dimensions and locations on the page.

In conclusion, custom website design and development if far from in jeopardy. It’s just that the terminology is being misused to ruse an uninformed population for corporate financial gain.