What you're in for
If you're really serious about setting up a commercial web site, I'm going to also assume that you want it to be a successful one as well. You need to be committed to the project, and allocate the appropriate resources. These resources can be in-house or outsourced, but you'll need then just the same. Commercial web sites are high maintenance. You need fresh, current content at least every month, but depending upon the site this could be every week or every day.

Your abilities
Running a successful commercial web site means that you understand your company's abilities and your limitations. It also means that you have a handle on the various elements that make up what I call the "three abilities": accessibility, reliability and accountability.

Accessibility
Accessibility is the ability for users to not only locate your web site, but to access and find the desired information on your pages. Accessibility will depend upon many factors. Some of these factors include the hardware and operating system your server is running on, the size of the Internet connection, and the size and number of graphics on your page.

Commercial sites require good layout, and site design, but especially require good navigation tools and controls. A site map is almost a given, as is some manner of search capability. Fortunately, Domino has a pretty robust search engine, so that issue's all but mute.

Some Domino limitations
However, Domino and commercial search engines, such as Excite or Alta Vista, aren't exactly best buddies. Why? Because most standard Domino URL's include "?" command syntax (?OpenDocument, ?OpenView, ?OpenElement, etc.). Any time a search engine sees one of these commands, it "assumes" that it's a CGI program, and doesn't index it.

And even if it did, your off-the-shelf Domino web site does not include meta tags. Meta tags are descriptive text elements that are used by some search engines, and contain information such as a site description, author, keywords, etc. It's amazing to me that Domino, and even Net Objects Fusion do not have provisions for meta tags. In a future article we'll address getting around the search engine and meta tag limitations.

Reliability
Reliability refers to your site's availability. Does your server go down frequently? How well does your server handle loads? Does you ISP constantly have Internet connection problems? Is your web hosting company over-subscribed, and are you contending for bandwidth? What would happen if your web site traffic doubled? Tripled? Quadrupled? Does your site have bad or broken links, or erroneous email addresses. Do your forms work, and do they return the user to the correct pages upon a successful or a failed submission? Do users get 404 or 500 errors when trying to navigate your site? Most importantly, is your site multi-browser compatible?

Your answers to these basic questions will indicate your site's reliability.

Accountability
Finally, there's accountability. Accountability is the ability to prove to potential advertisers and investors that your site is generating traffic. In the web site game, traffic equals interest, which then equals potential customers. The most important thing to glean from that last sentence is that when I say "potential customers", they don't necessarily have to be interested in buying YOUR products. A web site with high traffic may be able to, and often can resell advertising space to other companies for other products and services.