To my great surprise yesterday I received an e-mail from my web host (1and1) stating that my account was seriously threatening the server resources. Curiously, I checked my web stats.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I had received over 20,000 hits by the middle of the afternoon, and that there were currently over 200 users on my site. Huh? This was quite a jump from my average of 40-50 hits per day. A quick glance at my referals indicated what I suspected: my site was getting hammered by the “digg” effect.
Specifically, the article I wrote last December on “Imaging Windows XP for free” had been picked up by digg.com, sending an onslaught of traffic to my “Beginner” hosting package. Apparently my site buckled and 1and1 moved me to a temporary server. Their e-mail to me requested that I consider purchasing a dedicated server. I oggled at their suggested prices and quickly declined the offer.
So, I’m back and running on a different server, this time NOT hosted by 1and1. Hopefully it can withstand the strain, since I noticed that I’ve also been picked up by Lifehacker.