Too popular, random acts of niceness
So since the new Bar-barians web site launched it has been very well received. I have heard many positive comments. I mentioned that during the afternoon of the first day for the new site it got shut down by my web host because it was using too much cpu time on the shared server it resides on. A couple components of the site were identified as problematic so I changed/eliminated these items, hoping that would solve the overload problem. Well yesterday afternoon I saw they once again disabled the site.
I immediately got on the phone with my web host to get it turned back on. They told me the site is still consuming too many cpu cycles. With a WordPress site like I am running, the pages are very script heavy. Scripts utilize cpu time to execute.
The guy on the phone said the Bar-barians site has been very busy. He said in the past 30 days it has received 750,000 hits. When I did some further digging I discovered that 500,000 of those hits occurred since the site went live FOUR DAYS AGO. Woah.
Having a popular site is an awesome thing. However in this case the popularity is causing a problem. If I can’t find a way to get the resource usage of the site down we will have to move it to a place with more dedicated resources. I got the web host to turn the site back on. I told them it just launched so there are a ton of people hitting the site since it is all new. I said I would expect the usage to level off in a few days.
I took additional steps to reduce the sites footprint, installing a caching plug in that creates a static version of the pages, which it serves to most visitors as a flat html file instead of scripted php page. In theory, this should greatly reduce the burden on the server.
I am hoping the combination of these things will keep the lights on at the Bar-barians site. Moving it to a dedicated platform would result in much higher hosting costs. I did speak to the guys about turning all of these hits into ad revenue. With that much traffic it is quite possible that higher end hosting could be more than paid for with ad dollars.
Speaking of ad dollars, I just earned my first $100 of ad revenue last month (took 4 months to get there) since I had to start over from square one with AdSense after my personal account got shut down. I an doing whatever I can to maximize my ad potential, running them on my YouTube channel, here and on my Dufisthenics blog. I am still looking to catch lightning in a bottle like I did with my Tough Mudder video on my old channel that was approaching 90,000 views. I really thought my cake break video might be that ticket.
Yesterday I was talking to my mom about her internet/phone bill that I pay for her. I noticed the monthly amount was more than it normally is. She called to find out what the deal was.
Mom had complained forever that her package didn’t include free long distance which didn’t make sense to me since it is normally thrown in anymore. Well once the customer service rep was looking at mom’s account she realized that there was something wrong. She said that mom should have been getting free long distance all this time.
So as an apology they agreed to give mom the next tier of internet speed, free long distance and a $10 discount over what she was being charged. Wow, that’s cool.
Last night at the grocery store I had another act of niceness take place unexpectedly. I was checking out and had no coupons. The cashier noticed one of the things I was buying had a coupon in the latest Publix flyer. She pulled it out, scanned the coupon and saved me three bucks. Of course she had no obligation to do so and I would have never known there was three dollars I was leaving on the table that I didn’t need to.
She did it just to be nice. It reaffirmed my faith that not all people are scumbags, just most of them. 😉
Tonight I shove off for a 200 mile drive north and east to the location of my SSR meet up. I booked a La Quinta that is near by which should afford me a good nights sleep instead of my getting up with the crickets to drive up there Saturday morning.
It will be an interesting experience meeting all of these guys that I only know via a message board. I expect to return with a greatly expanded knowledge of my truck and an appreciation for the good will of fellow SSR owners.