NEED HELP ASAP: SERVER ISSUE

[NoahsDad]

Hey guys,

Some of you may be aware of our story.  We have a website about or son who was born with Down syndrome.  Two days a go a post I wrote went sort of viral, and I woke up this morning to an email from my host saying they had to take my site down as an emergency because of the amount of resources it is using.

So now my site is down (noahsdad.com.) ...any ideas how to proceeded? I really need to get my site back online asap.

Thank you.

[KeriMorgret]

Rick, I've noticed that that page and your site in general has some images that are fairly large in file size that aren't helping matters. One fast fix is to install the Smush.it plugin for Wordpress at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-smushit/. It'll help optimize images as you load them, and will also optimize all existing images in your media library. It's a lossless compression, so the image quality won't change, just the filesize. In the longer term, you might want to consider optimize for web in photoshop for some of your pictures.

Here's a great SEOmoz post about other things you can do to optimize your site. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/optimizing-page-speed-actionable-tips-for-seos-and-web-developers. Some are easy, some will take a while longer. First thing I'd do though is put in smush.it and have it attack what it can on your existing images, since your site is still getting a lot of press.

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Rick,

A huge congrats on how successful your post was! I see it just keeps getting more and more press, which is awesome.

What's the status on this question? Have you worked something out with your host or changed hosts? Are you still looking for some advice, or has this been taken care of?

Keri

[KeriMorgret]

I've had good experience with TigerTech for hosting (they've always been quite responsive, prices are good, and they are easy to use). I've never had a spike like that, but Matt Cutts hosts his blog there and he purposely got on Digg or Slashdot and they were able to handle the spike just fine.

No matter your provider, the next time you see a spike like this happening, give them a call before the server totally melts down. Tell them you've gotten some great press and it's a legit spike but only temporary, and can they make sure that your site doesn't go down.

There is also some Wordpress plugins you can use for caching to help your site through a spike like this.

[nvs.nim]

Just gave it a quickscan, reading it will be something for tonight, but love the pic you used in the post. Sooo cute!

[NoahsDad]

I use site5.com and they 'unlimited' hosting also..but when you get a HUGE spike (I got around 80K views yesterday) they can't handle it on shared hosting they said because it effects all the other sites on the server...which I understand. They put the site up for now..but need to find an alternative asap so this doesn't happen again.

Here's the post ---> http://noahsdad.com/target-down-syndrome/

[nvs.nim]

That really is a problem that should be fixed as soon as possible, and it looks like the goodwill of the hosting company isn't very big...

What hosting company are you using at the moment?

I know there are some great ones out there that will even provide you a service that they move your blog to their hosting platform FOR FREE, so the only thing you should do is get an account with this type of hosting company.

I'm pretty happy about the service at Certified Hosting, and they offer packages with unlimited bandwith. I know there are some downsides on the cheaper packages (such as to many sites on same IP) but I really love their fast service and if price isn't an issue you could go for a more expensive hosting package.

Hope you get your site bakc online as soon as possible!!!

[matbennett]

Talk to the host.  You have probably exceeded the bandwidth allowance of the hosting package that you are on.  Find out if there is a package with a bigger allowance, explain to them that the increase is probably temporary then start haggling.

Be sure that they are aware of the topic of the site when you haggle.  I know that, unless the increase was totally unsustainable, we'd cover the cost of a one off spike like that for an existing client. I bet others would too.

[AlanMosley]

Sounds like you have been topo sucessfull.

I would move hosting, what is the use hosting with them if you are successful they take your site down.