Slow site

[Mr.Bishop]

Question. Is being over capacity the same as the site being down?

Basically being over capacity can cause the site to go down.

Something like twitter has such a massive infrastructure to it, that it wouldn't completely go "down" like we would. Parts of their system would just choke out and start rejecting people if they hit their capacity.

For PSU, since the site is built in a certain way, when we hit capacity the machines crash and take everything completely down.

So Twitter would be up... but over capacity and rejecting people. PSU would be over capacity and have caused a crash, and therefore the machines are off and parts of the code might be broken.

The whole issue with upgrading is that in order to prevent this, we have to re-write the code to support better load balancing. That way when load comes in that is over capacity, we can have it fall back on additional systems. If we do it super right, we can even add in additional cloud servers to handle additional load on demand.

Its just a big task to handle load properly... but one that every site experiencing growth has to eventually go through.

[VintageElise]

It's like my favourite soap all in one thread.

Also, Tut, I'm sure the owner of this site knows more about his site than you do.

[Soldier 95B]

Holy fuck, now THAT is a serious keyboard warrior. Where to people get the balls?

[Mr.Bishop]

keyboard+warrior.jpg

[Agriel]

keyboard+warrior.jpg

lol

[*goo]

Was slow again a few hours ago, with a few internal server errors.

(This is a FYI post)

[three3-times]

So where are all these "guests" coming from that is causing the site to crash everyday at the same time? they surely cannot be real internet users!!!!!???
(if i have caught the wrong end of the stick, please forgive me)

[mankind]

[Cuguy]

Guys.. they are real users. Likely from a redirect somewhere on the web. We have gotten new users from these surges and are getting some good ad click throughs.

Don't know how many times the site management can say this before people catch on, but they are working to get our servers transferred to handle the traffic surges. If these were bots, they wouldn't be going through the expense of moving servers to a more stable solution.. we'd be stopping the bot invasion.

It IS being addressed, but moving a site as large as this requires quite a bit of forethought.

Just bear with us.

[Ixion]

Likely from a redirect somewhere on the web.

What is a redirect? And why would thousands of users be looking at one of our infraction threads? I could understand if something was posted on N4G or GAF, which has caused surges in some of our threads before, but every night we're getting thousands of guests who are looking at our infractions? Doesn't make sense.

[three3-times]

Cu, i love you lilke cooked food, but i dont buy that. Your telling me at the same time EVERYDAY, all of sudden the world is interested in looking at PSU.com??

[Cuguy]

Cu, i love you lilke cooked food, but i dont buy that. Your telling me at the same time EVERYDAY, all of sudden the world is interested in looking at PSU.com??

What I am saying is, they aren't bots... my guess is at some point a site that has a similar name to ours, or maybe something like goggle.com is being redirected here. Sort of like people taking the wrong exit off an interstate. they find themselves on our site, look around a bit maybe then leave. These things have been happening all over the web, and it just luck of the draw that we are profiting from it.

We didn't initiate these redirects if this is the case... if i am right, someone somewhere is simply pointing search engine traffic our way, for short periods of time. Hence the massive influx, and sudden disappearance of guests.

thing is, even if I am right or wrong about this...i can say categorically that there is no hacking, bot attack, or anything like that here. the stats show these are real people.

I just want that known so that people can stop the tin foil crap about us getting bot slammed, or spammed, or whatever else is coming about.

[Cuguy]

What is a redirect? And why would thousands of users be looking at one of our infraction threads? I could understand if something was posted on N4G or GAF, which has caused surges in some of our threads before, but every night we're getting thousands of guests who are looking at our infractions? Doesn't make sense.

A redirect is a temporary setup by a site owner that might have an empty domain name site.

For instance.. if i set up cuguy.com with a site registrar, but don't set up a site, I can redirect traffic to another site. So anyone searching my site would be sent to the site of my choosing. Sometimes, people on the net just pick a site name and redirect their search engine traffic.

Out of our hands, but someone somewhere has decided to do this I think

[F34R]

That's extremely funny to think at X time every morning, someone has a redirect set up lol.

[T0PGUN]

Is it hitting the forums or just PSU main site?

[Mr.Bishop]

A redirect is a temporary setup by a site owner that might have an empty domain name site.

For instance.. if i set up cuguy.com with a site registrar, but don't set up a site, I can redirect traffic to another site. So anyone searching my site would be sent to the site of my choosing. Sometimes, people on the net just pick a site name and redirect their search engine traffic.

Out of our hands, but someone somewhere has decided to do this I think

OK since there absolutely needs to be an answer to stop talking about this... I decided to do some research.

Specifically what is happening for this spike is that the owners of PSU have some pretty powerful website connections... They have organized some content distribution partnerships, where certain domains agree to post content from the site in prominent places.

Though it isn't an exact re-direct, people drop into those sites for random reasons, then click over to PSU.

The effect of this is that they come to the homepage (all the traffic is coming to the homepage) and then may see something of interest and click through to that.

There is usually a wave effect when you can get something like this going. You seed some extra traffic through a couple of well-placed content distribution deals, and then your search results and social uptake jump in accordance with more people checking stuff out.

I've worked with businesses in the past that do this. Take Yahoo for example... there are lots of sites that yahoo links to off the homepage. Same with MSN, AOL and about a bazillion other content portals. They make deals with content producers so that their homepages have interesting content on it that they don't have to produce. People go there, and fly through to the sites being linked.

So what we're doing is getting the PSU word out into the world. People are coming in, and zinging around the site. Its awesome when you make these connections and they work out, because it gets us in front of whole new audiences and is absolutely fantastic for ad revenue.

I had thought it was totally random, as that can happen too. I'm constantly submitting the site to traffic portals, search engines and anywhere else that might take it. There are sources of gaming traffic on the internet that are extremely vast. Turns out though that we actually did have some help from a little angel above us. Sorry I didn't know about it earlier, I just hadn't asked the right people and assumed that our submissions had just toppled over the edge.

Changes nothing though, we're still killing it and this is still awesome.

As well, we have picked out a new server host and begun the plan for server move so that load issues will be a thing of the past.

[F34R]

Just seems extremely unlikely as it's always the same time, and for the same time period. 2000 "guests" looking at an infraction report? Cmon.... If that's the story you guys are sticking to lol....

Surely the analysis tools for your hosting can show where the traffic is originating from.

[*goo]

Assuming they're legit guests, isn't an overloaded site going to hurt business? Getting loads of hits to the point the site can't cope? (at least, it terms of repeat viewers, members, subscribers etc)

[Mr.Bishop]

Just seems extremely unlikely as it's always the same time, and for the same time period. 2000 "guests" looking at an infraction report? Cmon.... If that's the story you guys are sticking to lol....

Surely the analysis tools for your hosting can show where the traffic is originating from.

I don't know what to tell you, I just answered you and addressed everything you just said.

TBH I think that VB isn't recording traffic correctly. People shouldn't be looking at the infraction report, that must be an issue with VB.

Assuming they're legit guests, isn't an overloaded site going to hurt business? Getting loads of hits to the point the site can't cope? (at least, it terms of repeat viewers, members, subscribers etc)

No it helps it. Traffic = money.

We've managed the site overload as best as we can until we can make the server move. Most of the problems have been mitigated, though there is still the occasional overload. We're pushing the server change through as fast as we can, but we can't rush it if we want to do it right once and for all.

It will take a few weeks to do a proper server move. Once that is done our traffic problems will be solved forever.

[F34R]

I don't know what to tell you, I just answered you and addressed everything you just said.

TBH I think that VB isn't recording traffic correctly. People shouldn't be looking at the infraction report, that must be an issue with VB.



No it helps it. Traffic = money.

We've managed the site overload as best as we can until we can make the server move. Most of the problems have been mitigated, though there is still the occasional overload. We're pushing the server change through as fast as we can, but we can't rush it if we want to do it right once and for all.

It will take a few weeks to do a proper server move. Once that is done our traffic problems will be solved forever.

Yeah, you explained it, but it doesn't really address it so to speak. Whatever though. As long as it gets fixed, you can say it was aliens for all I care. Just don't expect everyone to buy that story either.

[Mr.Bishop]

Yeah, you explained it, but it doesn't really address it so to speak. Whatever though. As long as it gets fixed, you can say it was aliens for all I care. Just don't expect everyone to buy that story either.

Wait what? Buy what?

Owners made deals to have links to PSU content posted on sites with lots of traffic and we get lots of traffic. What possibly else is there to explain? What is there to 'buy' about that? That's the truth... there isn't anything else.

More than that and I'd say that you're looking for alien conspiracy theories where there are none.

[VintageElise]

What he's saying (I think) is that happens so randomly. Why would a few thousand people look at an infraction of a spam bot?

[F34R]

Wait what? Buy what?

Owners made deals to have links to PSU content posted on sites with lots of traffic and we get lots of traffic. What possibly else is there to explain? What is there to 'buy' about that? That's the truth... there isn't anything else.

More than that and I'd say that you're looking for alien conspiracy theories where there are none.

All I'm saying is that it is extremely hard to swallow this story about content posted on sites with a lot of traffic, and we only get that traffic at a certain time period, for a certain time period. Couple that with the browsing habits of our new found friends, and what you have is a recipe that looks like a fish, smells like a fish, and taste like a fish. In short, that shit be fishy.

[Mr.Bishop]

All I'm saying is that it is extremely hard to swallow this story about content posted on sites with a lot of traffic, and we only get that traffic at a certain time period, for a certain time period. Couple that with the browsing habits of our new found friends, and what you have is a recipe that looks like a fish, smells like a fish, and taste like a fish. In short, that shit be fishy.

Derrrrr....

But I'm telling you that we're getting links to the homepage posted at a certain time each day which are driving traffic there, and then people go any which way they please after that.

I mean I'm really telling you exactly what it is. I don't even know what else you could possibly think is happening?

[F34R]

Derrrrr....

But I'm telling you that we're getting links to the homepage posted at a certain time each day which are driving traffic there, and then people go any which way they please after that.

I mean I'm really telling you exactly what it is. I don't even know what else you could possibly think is happening?

Lol. Ok bro.