Today, many ISP's provide space for your personal Web pages. There are also sites, like GeoCities and Tripod, that are funded by advertisers and allow you to host your site for free. If you're the true narcissist and have a deep desire, figuratively speaking, to see your name in lights and control when they're lit, you can purchase your own domain name and pay for a hosting service. All of these services are inexpensive, from totally, completely free to about $20 a month. For more features (more space, more bandwidth, dedicated servers etc.) the price can go up. With these prices, everyone from your best friend to your grandma can have a Web page. Almost everyone -- except people who want to host their personal homepages using Domino.

Recently, I wanted to move personal Web pages that I had created and hosted at my ISP to my own domain. Being a Notes/Domino developer, I figured I would look for a Domino hosting solution. That way, I would continue to expand my development skills, and also be able to add some great content and databases to my site. I started searching the Web, looking for Domino hosting services. I used search engines such as Yahoo and Excite, the Domino Atlas from Lotus and the hosting area on Notes411, the DominoPower Site of the Month for January.

I had a tough time finding what I wanted, but I did find some Domino hosting providers. There are several things you need to consider before getting a Domino provider.

There are many aspects to a Domino Hosting solution. As with any business decision, research your options carefully before jumping headlong into a contract. This article suggests some things you should check into. A table referencing several providers is included at the end of the article.

Hosting space
This is the hard drive space needed to house your applications and Web pages. Providers can vary from 15MB on up. Most sites also allow you to add additional space for a fee. Make sure your space is enough to allow your applications to grow, or make sure you have the money to upgrade.

How much space do you need? For comparison, the DominoPower articles themselves (since August) take up about 22MB. PalmPower, running since January 1998, consumes 60MB for article storage.

Monthly transfer
This is the amount of traffic that is allowed on your site per month. This normally starts at 500 MB per month and works up from there. Some providers will provide unlimited traffic, and some measure traffic by how many hits your page receives. Also, if you go over your allotted traffic for a month, you get charged extra. Try to gauge the use of your site and predict how many times it may be downloaded a month, then find a host that provides the traffic limitations that won't constrict you. You can use a tool like WebTrends to analyze your log and see how much traffic you're generating.