We've only had SEVENTEEN stories posted today. What's the matter with you people? :)
For the past month, from November 16 to December 15, we've AVERAGED over 19.5 stories a day.
For the past week, we've averaged almost 17000 visitors a day! For the busiest five hours of the day, we're averaging about 1000 visitors an hour. Sometimes, there are as many as 390 people all visiting a page within the same five minute window!
No wonder the searches were bringing us down!
BTW, since Bob and I stopped unlogged in visitors from using search and turned search off if more than 250 people are on the site at the same time, traffic has gone UP! More people not getting a busy signal in effect, I bet.
It's time to start thinking about our next upgrade. A year from now, at this rate of growth, our current server is going to be slowing down during the middle of the day, every day and not just when someone with a bad search habit ties up the database. But you know, we're running on a dual/quad core machine now with some pretty fast caching and 8 gig of ram.
Time for the octocore? Or put database on one machine and front end on another? Gotta think about this. More later.
Hugs,
Erin
Comments
Hmmm if it is an AMD machine
and if it is not a server class box, than you should be able to go to a hex core pretty cheaply. I do not know what is the price for opterons though. I do not know if there is a similar CPU upgrade path for Intel though that does not involve a new motherboard.
Kim
Not so many stories?
As someone who has posted chapters on the five most recent Wednesdays, may I offer another thought. Midweek posting is all right, but I have found that because posting seems to increase towards the end of the week, my entries get "pushed down" so that by the time Saturday comes I'm often off the bottom of the list.
Now, this wouldn't bother me much, as most of those who are interested in my stories have usually found me by then, but I look at the stats and notice a surge of hits at the week-end. Obviously, there are readers out there who can only come to the site at week-ends, ie when they are not working.
Is this week-end surge in site traffic real, or just a figment of my imagination? Of course, if I post nearer to or at the week-end, I am likely to get crowded out by all the other good stuff posted nearer to the week-end. What is an author to do?
(Not that I'm complaining, mind. I love this place and I know those who want to read my scribblings will find them eventually.)
Penny
Note. For what it's worth, apart from the recent site downage I have not experienced any delays at BCTS. I don't make use of search, however, I can't answer for that. This site is easily as fast as most that I visit every day. Kudos to the team!
Sunday-Monday Surge
The biggest days of the week for traffic are Sunday and Monday. Slowest days are Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Tuesday are unpredictable. Wednesday is meh, usually.
Biggest morning of the week is Monday, almost always. Biggest afternoon of the week is Monday or Tuesday. Sundays are big all day long without the afternoon surge.
There's usually about a 7% difference between the slowest and busiest day of the week, though it can be as much as 20%.
We usually have more than 200 people visiting in the half-hour between 1:30 and 2:00 AM West Coast time. That's the slow time of the day because the server is down for automatic maintenance and backups from 1:00 to 1:30 A.M. Pacific.
The busiest hour is usually 2-3 PM or 3-4 PM Pacific, weekdays, when people on the East Coast are just getting off work. Either they check the site before they leave work or as soon as they get home. There's a Monday morning blip at about 5-7 AM Pacific, apparently as BosWash workers get to the office and turn on their computers. Tuesday after lunch is when the work of the world is done and apparently, before and after people do their actual week's work, they check the site because Tuesday usually has the second longest afternoon rush and it can get deep and high, too.
The Friday rush is longer, it starts earlier and runs later but it never quite peaks like Mon-Thu. Saturday has no rush but is not usually as busy as Sunday. On Thursday morning when the world wakes up, sometimes it thinks it's Monday and sometimes it thinks it's Friday. I can't explain that.
Holidays are usually like Sundays except for Thanksgiving Day in the States when the afternoon rush is replaced by the afternoon snooze in front of a football game. Canadian, Mexican and Thai Thankgsgiving Days do not have the same effect. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
You had me wondering...
...about the searches. Thanks for clearing that up. ^_^
Story Listing
Have you looked at fictionmania lately they can go days without a new listing and the stories that are listed are either dark are out and out gay not that being gay is bad but not what the site was listing last year before it went down for 6 months or so I LOVE THIS SITE BCTS has my vote and PLEASE DONATE TO THE HAT BOX SO ERIN CAN KEEP IT GOING (and I was not asked to solicit donations) HUGS & KISSES(RICHIE2) PS. ANYTHING WILL HELP