Life in the Fast Lane

Welcome back!

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it, with a whole lot more than you ever bargained for.

Countless people covet making the Front Page of Digg — it’s many a blogger’s dream. Should you have a post on your blog that makes front page, be prepared for more than you’re likely aware for the cause and effect. Photo The Bex

Blogger’s Lament — Digg Effect

This is not to brag — this is my lament. And before I go any further, PLEASE — DO NOT Digg this, I BEG you. The Digg Effect is typically the term coined when a site crashes due to server overload once your article or post has hit front page. But there is so much more to deal with should your site actually survive the Digg Effect that you need to be made aware of before you venture down that path — bandwidth consumption, stampede of traffic and what you’ll be subject to from it, bandwidth theft, comments and pingbacks, the post Digg effect, site hosting, and how to keep your site afloat after the battering you and your blog receives.

One of my posts had been submitted to Digg unbeknownst to me. A side note to those that do this — please be kind enough contact the blog owner if there is a means of contact to give them the heads up to be prepared for the possible onslaught.

The post must have been near to hitting front page because my site suddenly began behaving sluggish. I received a comment which alerted me that my post had been dugg. Not long afterwards I received a call from my webmaster who is also my host. We had to act fast or the server would fail, as it was at 99% of consumption of bandwidth. There were over 1500 visitors per minute, and it only had 62 Diggs. In other words, it doesn’t take much to put your site in jeopardy of crashing.

My host couldn’t afford the possibilities of a repeat, as his server is also host to numerous websites. To add injury to the predicament I’d had a computer crash and quickly worked to get my husband’s laptop set up for my own use with requirements for my blogging. After moving to a new host we put the post back up.

Within one day of functioning without glitches I began updating the post with new entries. The site was behaving sluggish. Once again I received a comment to the post alerting me it had been submitted again. This had been made possible because I had to obtain a new domain in the process of moving hosts, as the blog is built into the back end of our business website.

Now the REAL fun begins, surviving the Digg Effect. You may be thrilled with the rush initially, but trust me, the thrill doesn’t last for long. Here’s what you’ll be faced with…

The Digg Effect

Bandwidth Consumption
If your server survives the Digg Effect you’re going to get hit by massive bandwidth consumption. Consider this — every time your page is called to open your page consumes however many bytes the page consists of for bandwidth use. The Digg count for those who’ve dugg it doesn’t come close to indicating how many hits your page is receiving. And if they click to other pages you have even more bandwidth use. Photo McNeney

We survived the Digg effect, but for the first day alone I had already used 46% of my allotted space of 1 terabyte, which is 1000G. That’s a LOT. Then there was the post digg effect the next day which consumed even more.

Photo left – 1st post dugg, center – post Digg effect, right – 2nd post dugg.

2 days later another of my posts had been dugg but this time the person had the courtesy to inform me after they had done it. Kudos to the individual with polite manners! But I hadn’t expected it would be one that would make front page. Was I ever wrong. The second hit to front page consumed another 40% of my allotted monthly bandwidth.

The Stampede
Be prepared for a ride like you’ve never experienced. I liken it to the Running of the Bulls. Hoards of people will come crashing through your site in sheer madness bringing with it utter chaos.

Photo dpstyles

If you’re unaware that your page has been dugg and you’re not there to protect your site, you may suffer horrific damage from the ambush. Fortunately I was working on my blog and there to deal with the attacks, but let me tell you, it wasn’t a picnic. After hours and hours of dealing with the issues I felt like I’d been either trampled on and left to die or been hit by a cement truck.

Bandwidth Theft
You can definitely count on the fact that you’ll be subject to bandwidth theft by people hotlinking to your images, even from the comments in the Digg itself. Once sites, blogs and forums begin writing about your post, there’ll be even more hotlinking, but you won’t have the time to investigate who the culprits are for the time being to put a stop to it, as you’re too busy dealing with everything going on at your site.

I tried using a code for the blog that claimed to prevent people from hotlinking to images from posts, but my webmaster couldn’t get it to work. If anyone knows of a plugin that works, I’d really appreciate the info for it for myself and to help others as well.

Comments and Pingbacks
Never let it be said that Diggers don’t leave comments. But for the few that leave kind ones, there are countless more that behave as if they’re in the comments section on the Digg site, which is a whole world unto itself.

You’ll be subject to some rude, lewd, and crude remarks to both you and those that have left polite ones. There’s no rhyme or reason to much of it, and it’s difficult for me to comprehend why certain people do it. They don’t know you and they don’t care about you or the damage they create — in fact, it seems to be their modus operandi. Trolls.

Not only will you be busy deleting the hate comments, but there will be a borage of pingbacks from others linking to your post that you’ll possibly want to delete. My webmaster informed me that the comments and pingbacks were also consuming considerable bandwidth.

It’s no small wonder why many large sites have commenting turned off. I had the option to do this, but it would also affect the entire site. If you elect to switch off comments, you’ll be subject to a surge of pingbacks the moment they’re turned back on. If you turn off the option for pingbacks you won’t have quick access to the information as to who is linking to you unless you have analytics installed, which I don’t. Yes, I know I SHOULD but it’s always the issue of finding the ever elusive factor of time, so don’t beat me up for it.

The Post Digg Effect

I’ve never actually heard this as an actual term, and I hereby dub thee. After surviving the Digg Effect you will have numerous considerations and decisions to make for hosting, domains, and how to keep your site afloat. Photo Lynn Morag

Hosting
You’ll need to decide to either stay with your current host or find a new one that can handle the Digg Effect. I had no option but to move, and it’s no small task. Be certain that you do your homework to make a wise choice, because you don’t want to have to repeat the process.

A friend was bumped from 3 hosts within 2 weeks after being hit by front page diggs. Even though claims were made of their capabilities, he was punted without notice and not refunded any of portion his 1 year’s hosting fees he’d paid for upfront. I’ve moved to Media Temple upon his recommendations, which hasn’t failed me yet for this first week. I’ve also been receiving daily reports to alert me to cautionary measures I need to take from daily consumption due to these surges of traffic.

In the process of switching hosts I’ve had to obtain a new domain and domain name. The effect of this was losing all of the precious backlinks and Technorati faves I’ve received to this point. Sniff. (Wipes nose on sleeve.)

The Tornado After the Storm
Well you’ve survived the digg effect after dusting off your shoulders. The calm after the storm – WRONG. You’re in the eye of the tornado.

What’s good for front page for Digg is good for a crack at being the one to quickly post to other social sites such as Reddit, Delicious, Plime, Fark, and the works before someone else does. Don’t forget the forums either. You’re now subject to full bore hurricane force — even larger surges of traffic from the collective sites, comments and a litany of pingbacks. The one positive note to the comments is that it’s rare to see the flaming you received from the first flood of traffic. Photo Extreme WX Photographer

Loss of your Posts
The only alternative I had to stop the onslaught was to take my pages down. The reports estimated that if I continued with the way I was currently operating, I was going to exceed my allotted monthly bandwidth, with an estimated bill of $1,500 US. GACK!

I haven’t monetized my site — I do this purely for fun, to express my creativity, and the pleasure of the people I’ve met along the way that have become new friends. In less than 24 hours of deleting the first post that had been dugg, I was forced to also delete the second post that hit front page. This is a tragic turn of event to be forced into if you’ve created a popular post that you’ve placed a lot of work into.

Keeping Your Site Afloat

Now you need to make some very quick decisions how to keep your site afloat. Much of your bandwidth has already been consumed for the entire month, adding insult to injury. You need to optimize your site if you’ve never done so before. My front page had been consuming 20% of my bandwidth. Being relatively new to blogging myself, I’m going to discuss some measures for you to take. They may be old hat to those with experience, but solid advice to those that are new such as I.

Images
I’m a very graphic person and like to put some life into my posts with photos. The larger they are the more impact I receive. I can say this first hand based on comments and links to posts — of course subject of the post is also a factor. If you’re going to use images, create the smallest file size possible by using your image editor to ‘Save For Web’. Merely saving with a low quality isn’t enough. By taking the low quality images I’d saved and converting them to Save For Web, I was able to reduce each image by up to 70% of its original file size.

Number of Posts on Home Page
Consider that each time your front page is called up, it consumes the bandwidth for each post you have appearing on your home page. I’ve switched from 10 posts to 5. My webmaster is quite adamant that I reduce the number to 1. I refuse to do this as it reminds me of certain unsavory blogs I’ve seen at times.

Do I reduce it even further to 3 posts for front page? What say you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I fear that if I don’t have a varied offering to new visitors by offering enough page views they may exit stage left quickly and not return.

The More Feature
Once again, my webmaster is strongly voicing his opinion to turn on the More feature to provide only a small snippet of the post — 1 post on front page with the More feature. Horror of horrors! I’d look like a spam blog!

I’ve read mixed opinions about using the More feature. Some very popular sites use it, but personally, I don’t feel a lesser site for traffic that’s not so well known can afford to utilize this feature.

RSS subscribers — which a growing number of readers are using — are forced to leave their reader to read your entire post. This either annoys some mildly or angers others to the point of cancelling their subscriptions. I don’t want to take those risks, but I’d love to hear other’s first hand experience or opinion on the topic.

Widgets
The more widgets you have on your home page, the more bandwidth you’re consuming each time a visitor clicks on your front page, not to mention each post. Trim it down to your essentials. If you like the widgets that display visitors, decide on which are most important to you, and how many avatars you really need to appear on your widgets.

Not only are you consuming unnecessary bandwidth (that you may be forced to pay extra for), the longer it takes your front page and individual pages to load. If it takes too long you’ve lost potential readers.

Final Verdict

Don’t get me wrong, it may appear that I’m slamming Digg, but I’m actually addicted to the site. I just don’t wish to endure the effects of making front page. I have removed my Digg widget so it’s not as effortless to submit my pages.

While there may be some trolls on the site and those that like to create flaming wars, there are just as many or more that are decent and desirable ‘friends.’

Based on the timing of the comments received, very few negative ones were made from those coming from the other social sites. It’s not very difficult to figure out which users are from Digg even though they’ve used other aliases either.

The quality of my recent posts has suffered due to not being able to spare the time to write in my usual style while I rode the tidal wave over the past 5 days.

I’m not certain that I will be able to repost the pages I’ve had to delete. I may experiment by adding one of them once again and keep a close watch in case it has to be permanently removed, but it won’t be during this month’s hosting, as I can’t afford to have my site taken down entirely for the period as a result. The repercussions would be fierce.

If you’ve monetized your site and have a large enough popularity that your site income can cover the costs, then you obviously don’t share the concerns I have. But if your site isn’t monetized, you need to seriously consider all or some of what has been offered here.

If others have further advice, hints, or tips, please do share, and be as detailed in your advice as possible for those of us unfamiliar with the processes. But remember, be NICE or this little puppy isn’t playing with you.

And finally, be careful what you wish for …

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