In June 2009, my server logs showed that Blog from Italy got over 785,000 hits. Now before someone goes, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of hits for a blog’, you should know that hits are not the same as visits, and I won’t even go into the concept of uniques! ‘Hits’ refers to all the little bits and bobs of a web page which load every time someone visits Blog from Italy. The actual number of visits which shows up in Google Analytics is much, much lower.
Regardless, nearly one million is quite a big number, and its slowing things down from time to time, and has caused Blog from Italy to crash a couple of times that I know. It has soon popped back onto the webosphere, thanks to my hosts, but risks falling over like a drunken man once more. I have not stood back and prayed. No.
Some Tinkering Behind the Scenes
I have carried out a few modifications which seem to have reduced this WordPress powered site’s thirst for resources, but the problem is that this may make Blog from Italy easier to visit, and move the performance modifications back to square one. I hope not (in that I hope the performance mods do work!), but I know I’m going to have to keep an eye on things, and if Blog from Italy falls over big time, I’ll have to consider some form of solution, which will most likely mean throwing money at a tougher hosting package, and hoping that this will suffice.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
I’d love something like a dedicated virtual server, but the management of these things really needs a full time technician. Blog from Italy does not make enough to cover such costs, and nor do I, alas. And I just do not have the time to keep a weather eye on a server permanently. Such is life.
Fewer Bells and Whistles
In the meantime, you might notice that some of the bells and whistles have disappeared from this site. If the absence of some feature or other really does get your goat, do let me know, and I’ll see what I can do.
As always, many thanks for reading about Italy, and if you find Blog from Italy is acting with a little recalcitrance from time to time, blame those hits! These things happen when traffic levels double over a few months.
Oh, and to any WordPress fans out there. WordPress is a great blogging platform, but go easy on all those plugins – they work fine when you have a limited number of visits, but can cause real problems when visitor levels produce over 1000, known, page views a day.
