Google Sites review 2026: free, simple and built around Google

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What Google Sites is and who it’s for

Google Sites is Google’s simple website builder. You build pages by dragging blocks onto a grid, then drop in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Calendar, Maps or YouTube videos. Pages adjust to phones on their own, and several people can edit at once, the same way they do in Docs.

It works with a personal Google account at no charge. Google’s July 2025 Sites update lists people with personal Google accounts among the users who have Sites. Google’s own product page never uses the word “free,” though. It mostly pushes “Try Sites for work,” which means paid Google Workspace.

Our verdict: Google Sites is a good fit for a team hub, a class or club page, a project site or a private site shared with a few people. It is a weak fit for a business that wants customers to find it on Google, because it has no blog, no store and very few SEO settings.

Plans and what they really cost

Google Sites has no paid plan of its own. The builder and the hosting cost nothing, and your site’s content counts against your Google Drive storage: 15 GB on a personal account, shared with Gmail and Google Photos.

Money only comes in when you add Google Workspace, which gives you email at your own domain and admin controls. These prices come from Google’s Workspace pricing page and its admin help, and they exclude tax.

“Billed yearly” is Google’s Annual/Fixed-Term plan, and you must pay it in full even if you cancel early. “Billed monthly” is the Flexible plan, which you can cancel any time.

The pricing page also showed a new-customer offer in October 2026: up to 50% off the first 3 months, from November 5, 2026 to February 5, 2027. A footnote on the same page describes a different introductory price, and Google says the final price appears before you sign up, so we left the offer out of the math below.

Can you use your own domain for free?

This is the big open question. Google’s help doesn’t say whether a free account can connect a custom domain. Its custom domain help page gives the setup steps without naming an account requirement. On the same page, Google suggests importing a personal-account site into Workspace “for more control, like linking to your custom domain.”

What Google does spell out:

• Only the site owner can connect a domain. You prove you own it with a TXT record in Google Search Console, then add a CNAME record at your domain registrar. Google shows the exact value on screen. (Both are DNS records, the settings that tell browsers where your site lives.)
• The address must include a subdomain such as www. A bare domain like yourbusiness.com is rejected.
• The site must be shared publicly. A restricted site sends visitors to its sites.google.com address instead.
• Each site can have up to 5 custom domains, with up to 20 domain mappings a week. A new domain can take up to 48 hours to go live.

Google Sites doesn’t give you a domain. Google Domains registrations moved to Squarespace Domains in 2023 and 2024. Google says domains linked through Google Domains before then keep working, but you have to verify ownership to edit them.

A 3-year cost example

Here is a small business site with a .com from an outside registrar and one Google Workspace inbox. We include Workspace because Google’s help points personal-account users to it for custom domain control, and it gives you a business email address at the same time.

The math: Business Starter is $7 x 12 x 3 = $252 billed yearly, or $8.40 x 12 x 3 = $302.40 on Flexible. The domain is $11.28 for the first year plus two renewals at $18.48.

If you buy the domain through Google while signing up for Workspace, Google defaults you to Business Standard ($14 a user a month billed yearly), and the domain price wasn’t published on the pages we read.

$300.24 is about as low as a site with your own domain and a business inbox gets. With the same domain and inbox, Carrd Pro Standard comes to $357.24, WordPress on Bluehost Starter to $432.60 ($3.99 a month for 36 months, renewing at $9.99) and Wix Core to $1,332.96. The low price comes with trade-offs, covered next.

What you can build

Design and pages

You start from a Google template or a blank site, then pick a theme that sets the images, fonts, buttons and menu layout. Google doesn’t publish a template count or a page limit, but pages can nest up to 5 levels deep.

Everything snaps to an automatic grid. That keeps pages tidy, but you get far less design control than on Wix or Squarespace. Images upload as .jpg, .png or .gif; other file types go through Drive.

Embeds and custom code

Embedding is where Google Sites shines. You can add a Google Form for sign-ups, a Calendar for events, a Sheet for a schedule, a Map, a YouTube video or another web page. You can also paste HTML, CSS and JavaScript into an embed box. That code runs inside the box, and some sites refuse to be embedded.

Since July 2025, the search inside Google Sites also finds text in embedded Docs, Sheets, Slides and PDFs.

Blog and store

There is neither. Google documents no blog or post feature in the current Google Sites, so a “blog” means adding ordinary pages by hand. There’s no cart, checkout or product feature either. If you need to sell, pick a builder with a store, such as Square Online.

SEO and analytics

The SEO settings are thin. You can set custom page paths, connect Google Analytics with a property ID, verify your domain in Search Console and ask search engines not to index a public site. Google documents no meta description field, no redirects, no canonical tags and no structured data for the current Google Sites.

Analytics data can take up to 24 hours to appear, and renaming a page can break its tracking.

Privacy and sharing

Each published site is either Public or Restricted to the people or groups you name. That makes Google Sites handy for an internal site such as a staff handbook or a team wiki. Work and school accounts may see extra sharing options limited to their organization, and people outside it can still view a public Workspace site without an account.

AI features

We found no AI site generator for Google Sites on Google’s official pages. You build by hand from a template.

What happens when you leave

Google’s export help page says draft and published sites are included when you download your Google Drive data with Google Takeout. It lists what comes along, such as page text, images, links, embedded HTML, navigation, custom page paths, themes, fonts and colors, and warns that downloaded images might be lower quality. Neither that page nor Google’s Takeout help describes the file format. That is documented only by third parties: guides from Steegle and Digital Citizen say you get a ZIP of HTML files plus images for viewing offline, and that forms and dynamic embeds stop working.

• Content: page text and images come out in that copy. Embedded Docs, Sheets and Forms stay in your Google account, where you can download them on their own.
• Design: the look survives in the static copy, but there is no theme you can install on another platform.
• Code: scored 0, because Google doesn’t document an HTML export; third-party guides describe one. There’s no supported way to load the download back into Google Sites or edit it as a site somewhere else.
• Data: Sites holds no store or customer list. Anything people send through an embedded Google Form lands in a Google Sheet you own, which downloads as CSV or Excel.
• Domain: Sites doesn’t register domains, so yours stays with your registrar. You point it at your new host.
• Redirects: there’s no 301 redirect tool, so old page addresses won’t forward to new ones. Match your old page paths on the new site where you can.

The Takeout copy is a static site: plain files with no editor behind them. Treat it as a record of your pages for the rebuild, not a site you can keep working on.

Google Sites scores higher than Squarespace (5 out of 10) or Wix (3 out of 10) mostly because there is less to lose: no store, no blog posts and no customer data held inside the builder. The score measures what you can take with you, not how much the builder can do. Our guide to leaving your website builder walks through the move step by step.

Gotchas

• You need www. Custom domains must include a subdomain. Google’s error text says the URL “must include a subdomain” (custom domain help).
• Custom domains need a public site. Restricted sites redirect to the sites.google.com address (custom domain help).
• The domain link can break. Your custom domain can stop working if you delete the site, transfer site ownership or move the site into a shared drive (custom domain help).
• Some features drop on a custom domain. Embedded Google Groups don’t show, features that need a Google sign-in may fail and some non-Google fonts fall back to others.
• Storage is shared. Site content counts against the owner’s Drive storage, which is 15 GB shared with Gmail and Photos on a free account (Workspace admin help, Drive help).
• Thin SEO. Only page paths, an Analytics ID and a no-index request are documented (publish and Analytics help).
• Yearly Workspace is a commitment. The Annual plan must be paid in full even if you cancel early (Workspace admin help).
• Not for accounts managed by parents. Google says those accounts can’t use Sites to make new sites, though they can still see and edit existing ones.

Who should pick Google Sites, and who should not

Pick Google Sites if:

• You need a site for a team, class, club or project, and everyone already uses Google.
• You want a free information page that shows a Google Form, Calendar, Sheet or Doc.
• You want a site that only named people or your organization can see.
• You already pay for Google Workspace and want a simple site at no extra cost.

Look elsewhere if:

• You need a blog, an online store or real SEO controls.
• You want your bare domain, without www, as the site’s address.
• You may move later and need 301 redirects to keep your search traffic.

Alternatives worth a look

• Carrd: one-page sites on your own domain for $19 a year (Pro Standard), with a downloadable HTML copy on Pro Plus. Exit score 6 out of 10.
• Canva websites: better looking pages if you already design in Canva, free on a my.canva.site address, with your own domain on Pro at $144 a year. Exit score 4 out of 10.
• Wix: far more design control, plus a blog and store, from $17 a month billed yearly. Exit score 3 out of 10.
• Squarespace: polished templates, a blog and a store, from $19 a month billed yearly ($25 billed monthly). Exit score 5 out of 10.
• Free website builders compared: what 14 builders give you for $0, and what they hold back.