The reason they can keep thier web site is complicated, and simple.

You can buy a domain, a "website name", for a pitance. And you never talk to a human. You tell a computer what you want, it looks to see if it is already taken. If the computer finds that that name is unused, it asks how you want to pay said pitance. You put in a credit card number.

Then you need a domain server- no biggy, you can get them any where. You just need a decent web connection, and free tools for linux.

Then, you need to let the domain servers know you are there. Again, you are talking to computers. Computers are stupid, trust me.

It can be even easier- free sites. Like yahoo-geocities. They look if the page is taken. If not, you've got it until someone complains. If you are a student, odds are your campus has a computer club with a webserver. Just find a friendly or sloppy sysadmin, and you have your website. Or just brute force crack a webserver.

There, you have a website, complete with email and all the other fun stuff. Google lists 8 BILLION sites and change, and I seem to recall reading someplace that they only have looked at 60% of the websites in the world. That is the real trick, actually- getting on the search engines.

I know I'm skipping a lot of steps; I'm just going over the highlights, but it isn't hard.