Slashdot Mirror
Google Traffic Takes Down Web Site
bazonkers writes "Searchenginelowdown.com reports that it appears that the Google logo yesterday (honoring Gaston Julia) linked to the Google image search results for the words 'julia fractal'. The resulting traffic generated from clicking on that 'featured logo' incapacitated the servers of the top-listed images, hosted at an Australian university. This more than inconvenienced the owners of that site, who had to move pages and ended up displaying this page instead."
I wonder who generates more traffic, google or slashdot... Google has far more traffic, I'm certain, but Slashdotters travel very specific links.
What's more dangerous to your bandwidth - top link on a google doodle or a slashdotting?
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
No.
Because that would be the first step down the slipperly slope into a full blown portal with weather, news, horoscopes, blah, blah, blah.
Keep it clean and simple, or they will no longer be the number one
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
By phrasing the issue in a shape of a question rather than just complaining about it they really gained my respect and admiration.
Some people understand that the purpose of a university (or any educator really) is to provoke thought and to impart knowledge and information. But also to let the end user (usually a student) draw their own conclusions.
The way the page is phrased makes me think that the person behind it - even supposing I didn't know he works with fractals - is one cool guy and probably a really awesome professor.
Should we have a guilty conscience for bring down servers as wantonly as we do? I think not, as the Internet is open and free and who's going to stop us
The fact that somebody can stop you is not what makes something bad.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying bringing down servers is a horrible thing, I'm just saying your argument sucks.
Have you tried Linux yet?
I spent a good part of my afternoon visiting pages linked to that google logo. The first page of results was so slow, and half the links were timing out.
I wondered why they didn't just return random results from the first 20-30 pages of links. That would have seemed more respectful to the poor bastards running sites off freebie dial-up and university hosting accounts.
I think not, as the Internet is open and free and who's going to stop us, but it's an interesting point they raise.
Technically speaking, there are a lot of immoral things that nobody is going to stop you from doing. If a kid hits their ball in your yard, you can just keep the gate locked and throw the ball in the trash. Doesn't mean it's right (unless they're doing it just to irritate you or something).
Some netizens don't like to admit the fact, but there is a certain level of responsibility that you need to have to partake in the Internet. Everyone is expected to do their fair share to keep things running, but a lot of people shirk that and just run rampant over everyone else. From networks bogged down by bandwidth hogs stealing movies and music to spammers to Slashdot, some people insist on just wantonly snatching everything they can grab and running for the hills.
Is anyone going to stop you? No, of course not. However, after awhile, you'll be left with nothing else to grab because nobody will see any value in providing anything for anyone else. Make it a hassle for people to give you stuff for free, and they just won't give it to you anymore.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
just how much money could Google make if they sold just a small ad on their home page
But then, would it still be Google?
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
This more than inconvenienced the owners of that site, who had to move pages and ended up displaying this page instead."
On the other hand, you could say that it benefited the owners of the site. After all, people were interested enough in fractals and/or Julia (or just the picture they saw), to follow up and seek out more information. Isn't the purposes of those sites to provide information to people interested in fractals?
Chances are, people who found the sites down will follow up the same links today or tomorrow to read more about fractals. Ultimately, it will increase traffic (and interest) to those sites. Thats's a good thing.
When I worked summers up on Cape Cod Mass at a family-owned pizza shop, a couple times during the summer we'd have the /. pizza effect -- the local sea camps would call in an order for 200 pizzas, or a couple of tour busses would pull in the lot with 100 hungry riders.
Did they call in advance? Did they ask permission to swamp us? Did we redirect them out the door and decline their order? Of course not. Variability in demand is a part of business.
The same goes for the half-dozen toys that Time Magazine says are the hot Christmas items, which suddenly disappear from the shelves. Should shoppers be restricted from buying them in order to maintain a few on the shelves?
Suddenly popular websites have the same consequence to the consumer - unavailability of supply. People find alternatives, come back later, etc.
So am I missing something dramatically new here?
If a kid hits their ball in your yard, you can just keep the gate locked and throw the ball in the trash.
Good point, and I agree with your post, but I think it goes deeper than that. Here we have two big internet engines (Google and Slashdot) piling hits on small research servers that can't take them. You can make the case that this is the net equivalent of a major corporation dumping toxic waste -- or some similar "big guy dumps on little guy" analogy. In your example, throwing out the ball is likely to get your house egged. But what leverage do you have to force Slashdot to be a good net citizen? Arguably very little.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I would disagree. At least somewhat.
People put things on their sites, so people can see, but most folks don't want everyone to see.
I have pictures of my newborn boy on the web. I want certain people to see these pics but would prefer no one else.
What options do I have? Password protect them? Not realistic.
Rather, I figure no one is interested in these pics so no one will bother.
But many times slashdot posts a article knowing it will kill the site. Not very nice in my book.
Agreed. What would the harm have been to wait and put this on the next Slashback? Slashbacks tend to generate a bit less traffic to the target site, but they cover the story effectively.
Sorry, but as someone who's experienced several slashdottings, I can attest to the fact that a Slashdotting can be a pain to manage on it's own. It's always fun, but it sometimes takes a lot of work to keep things going. Considering that these folks had just gotten buried by Google searchers, it seems like kind of a dick thing to do to then submit them to a Slashdotting. How hard is it for a Slashdot editor to send an email to the site administrator asking if they're ready for a Slashdotting? I'm not saying in all cases - but in a case like this, it just seems like the right thing to do.
Slashdot exists because of other sites, and operates as a forum essentially for the exchange of ideas. It should respect the maintainers of websites - after all, they're what makes Slashdot what it is!
Oh, boo hoo. Any webmaster worthy of that title would have anticipated this possibility, and done something to handle it. Options range from using mod_bandwidth (or similar tools at the firewall level) to finely control how many people can access the server at once, to using a script to block any specific referrer once they send you 10000+ hits in one day (or redirect them to everyone's favorite site). Better yet, set up a Google adwords account beforehand and become a millionaire off the Google-dotting.
This won't stop the server from getting hammered with requests, but it will help significantly, as each request will be limited to however many bytes it takes to drop a TCP connection.
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
So only the technologically elite should be allowed to put up websites? Well, that knocks about 90% of the internet off the globe, leaving a bunch of corporate sites and a few sites of hardware reviews and Beowulf clusters. How fun...
This is probably so obvious it's already been mentioned, but how about you (Google) mirror the first page of results you link to from the day's special banner? by default, rather than people having to think to use the google cache. You would of course need to mirror images or other large content. I don't know if there could be any legal problems with this but technicaly it should work and you'd only need to do it for a day.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.