Unexpected downtime
My apologies for the, not really unexpected, downtime since last week for almost 5 days. I didn’t realized that this blog site will eventually reach its bandwidth quota for this month. I was planning to wait until May 1 so that the bandwidth will reset, but I just couldn’t live without my blog so I decided to purchase an additional increase in its bandwidth.
Most of you encountered this page for the past four days.
So what really happened?
A two weeks before the downtime, I checked the stat analysis of this blog. I saw a sudden spike in the page loads, and that means more users are coming to the site. I also saw that the bandwidth meter is nearing towards its quota. Since there are only a few days before the bandwidth resets (every 1st day of the month), I figured the remaining bandwidth could handle the visitors. But I was wrong. The bandwidth capped last Thursday, as I was notified automatically by my host via email.
According to the stats, my blog reached 112,817 page hits for this month and ate through my bandwidth.
The probable cause?
It was because of the Hana Kimi (Japan) & Hana Kimi (Taiwan) post. I wasn’t expecting that much visitors commenting and visiting that single the page. And I was really trying to avoid trolls and flaming on that topic.
How did I arrive to this conclusion?
Based on the stat screenshot above. The sudden spike started last March. That was when I posted the blog entry about Hana Kimi, it was posted on the 20th of March.
Solutions?
I upgraded my hosting plan so that I can get additional storage space and bandwidth. The bandwidth now is 2.5 times more than the previous one. And I also installed a cache plugin to reduce server load and multiple page requests that’s eating up my bandwidth.
Whew! Finally my blog is back (it wasn’t really gone).
Update: I just got my blog black and the comments have started appearing, yet again. Thanks to all those who visited and commented on the site. Just keep coming and commenting…
it’s a great honor to have your bandwidth ran out, but yeah, could be quite annoying
I hope it doesn’t happen again.
BTW you’re the first one I saw that uses a Gravatar here, I can see it at the admin panel. It doesn’t show up here in the comments section because I’m using an old theme.
I think it’s time to modify this theme again.