Surviving Diggstruction
The last 24 hours was the most exciting and frustrating hours in my blogging career. An article which I’ve spiced up from Michael, reached the front page of Digg.com’s business and finance section. Someone have slipped it there and was caught in the midst of a digg tsunami. The massive horde of visitors simultaneously swarming over my site in just a few hours is the culprit why my website went down a couple of hours ago. I wasn’t prepared for my diggstruction or digg effect - “the term given to the phenomenon of a popular website linking to a smaller site, causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic”.
The Good
My stats skyrocketed! I’ve broken my first records of 1.5k pageviews and 1k visits. My ad earnings went as high as $12.52 while I was sleeping. My RSS feed subscribers totaled to 160 from a measly 14. Because most of the guys from Digg are tech-savvy, they must have been using their Alexa toolbar, making my Alexa ranking went high from 1M to 800k now. Also, I’m hoping to have some PR increase in the next update. For a new blogger, breaking those first records are something to be celebrated. I still can’t wipe off the grin on my face until now.
The Bad
When I woke up early this morning to check my emails, I thought I was spammed. Where the h*ll do these comments came from? My once slumber mailbox was awaken with tons of notifications. I have a lot of comments to moderate. I thought Akismet wasn’t able to detect these spams. Some comments were constructive, some were just tagging along while others were just a waste of time and space.
The Dirty
After about 100 diggs, my website begun to experience diggstruction. Things begun to wobble. Initially, my free hosting wasn’t able to manage the sudden spike from too many requests at the same time. After more than 750 diggs, my server died in exasperation. I’ve reached my maximum bandwidth limit. Argghh! Some good things never last.
While my website was down, I’ve surfed around the internet and gathered some tips from the pros, here, here, and here who have experienced the Digg effect many times and handled it flawlessly. Here are some simple few tips which I’ve learned from them:
Find a good hosting.
After I reached my bandwidth limit, I’ve notified my hosting provider right away. They are my first front line of defense. They took immediate actions and upgraded my account for free! Now, that’s what we call blessing in disguise.
Install WP-Cache.
I’ve came across this when I was looking for some nifting plugins to install in my Wordpress but I disregarded it. I thought it wouldn’t be any use to me because I won’t be expecting a lot of traffic. Wrong! Prevention is always better than cure. Though Wordpress can handle the digg effect beautifully, WP-cache plugin will make the system run efficiently faster.
At the moment, everything is already running smoothly. From the tidal storm came the placid calm water. Finally, I’ve survived diggstruction. With these tips in mind, I’m ready to handle my next digg effect! How about you?
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Tags: Digg, Digg Effect, Social website Posted in
