Site Downtime Last Night

[GrandOldTeam]

Sorry lads, despitejust moving onto a flashy new, more expensive host to deal with demand, Yesterday the server couldn't handle all the sudden traffic.

We were using 30% of the servers usage before it was automatically suspended - most websites are allowed 1%...

Working on ways to prevent it in the future, but its unlikely without paying for a dedicated server which is silly money a month.

[Bruce Wayne]

That is the problem with vB, it's a hungry little bugger. Doesn't help that many hosts don't allow for bursts very well, so even if your average usage is within limits if you have heavy bursts you can be taken down.

Depending on growth a dedicated box may be the only option. You can get a VPS for a reasonable sum each month.

[GrandOldTeam]

Thing is though, random things like a Blackburn thread from Feb is using 4.7% of server usage, and Cals avatar 5.7%?

Very, very strange. The host claim that they host a more active vbulletin forum which only uses 5% overall....

Trying to get to the bottom of it. Suspect a bad script?

[Neiler]

I nearly had an embalism when the site went down, kipper and NSNO did for a time too, was forced to watch that **** on SSN!

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

time for a clearout me thinks danny.............start with the angry kid

[Bruce Wayne]

It is tricky. vbSEO can suck the juice a bit. Do you have the data on search spiders? They can also use up quite a bit of power. A decent robots.txt file can ensure they don't spider folders they don't need and can also ban tiny search engine spiders from accessing the site.

[Blue Ray]

I thought I'd been thrown out after all that work I did climbing through the window in the first place.

[TX Bill]

I notice a few things are missing. No avatars. Members who've visited today on the home page aren't there. I'm assuming those will be back in time then.

[GrandOldTeam]

Originally Posted by Bruce Wayne

It is tricky. vbSEO can suck the juice a bit. Do you have the data on search spiders? They can also use up quite a bit of power. A decent robots.txt file can ensure they don't spider folders they don't need and can also ban tiny search engine spiders from accessing the site.

Nothing to do with vbSEO, had the problem prior vbSEO, which is why had to moved server. Had all logs checked.

Originally Posted by TX Bill

I notice a few things are missing. No avatars. Members who've visited today on the home page aren't there. I'm assuming those will be back in time then.

All disabled while try and find out whats causing a problem.

[atrottel]

Bruce Wayne has more hands-on experience with forums than me, but here are a few ideas I've seen other forum and sports forum owners use:

• ban sigs and avatars at busy periods (transfer window, NFL draft, etc.)
• ban sigs and avatars anyway except for forum contributors/supporters/premium members (as you can see, I've got no particular interest in that anyway)
• block access to archives from a certain date without log-in
• clearing out member lists by requiring re-confirmation
• dump the social media shite (who is going to Digg a discussion about whether the Yak likes pineapple?)
• negotiate deal with host for anticipated temporary surges (Digg front page, mention in New York Times, etc.)

If you want, lurking around somewhere I have a professional level .htaccess bot & spider blacklist that I can send you - you may be getting scraped to death by MFA sports dross.

[TX Bill]

That Atrottel sounds like he knows what he's talking about.