Oct 14, 2008
If your site can’t handle inbound Drudge traffic, are you really in the news business when it matters?
Seriously. If your calendar says 2008 or later, and you’re a metro-market news site, and you can’t handle a wave of traffic from Drudge or Digg or Slashdot or any of the popular linkfarms, you should rethink your server budget.
(Yeah. I know. I should be so lucky.)
UPDATE: I questioned posting this, because I thought it bordered on unfair. But now two hours later, the same article on tampabay.com is still being linked by Drudge and is still making their server swoon. Unsolicited advice: make it a static page for now.
UPDATE 2: As of 12:15 pm, the site appears to be stabilized. Glad they’re back.
Oct 14, 2008 @ 09:44:59
Looks like they got it back up. I was able to see it this a.m. also. I think more than anything, this example underscores that sites need emergency plans to handle a traffic spike like that. However, the St. Pete Times, being a totally independent site, doesn't have the same resources as Tribune or Gannett and its hordes of IT people [Disclaimer: I used to be an intern there]. Being the primo link on Drudge during the election season is probably an unprecedented traffic spike for them.
Oct 14, 2008 @ 10:01:30
As I mentioned above, I was conflicted about posting this. We've all been slammed by the double-edge of Drudge's links at our day jobs, but I think it's a good example of why it's important, as you note, to have a recovery plan for when this happens.
Oct 14, 2008 @ 10:44:59
Looks like they got it back up. I was able to see it this a.m. also. I think more than anything, this example underscores that sites need emergency plans to handle a traffic spike like that. However, the St. Pete Times, being a totally independent site, doesn't have the same resources as Tribune or Gannett and its hordes of IT people [Disclaimer: I used to be an intern there]. Being the primo link on Drudge during the election season is probably an unprecedented traffic spike for them.
Oct 14, 2008 @ 11:01:30
As I mentioned above, I was conflicted about posting this. We've all been slammed by the double-edge of Drudge's links at our day jobs, but I think it's a good example of why it's important, as you note, to have a recovery plan for when this happens.
Oct 14, 2008 @ 15:44:59
Looks like they got it back up. I was able to see it this a.m. also. I think more than anything, this example underscores that sites need emergency plans to handle a traffic spike like that. However, the St. Pete Times, being a totally independent site, doesn't have the same resources as Tribune or Gannett and its hordes of IT people [Disclaimer: I used to be an intern there]. Being the primo link on Drudge during the election season is probably an unprecedented traffic spike for them.
Oct 14, 2008 @ 16:01:30
As I mentioned above, I was conflicted about posting this. We've all been slammed by the double-edge of Drudge's links at our day jobs, but I think it's a good example of why it's important, as you note, to have a recovery plan for when this happens.