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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."
Looks like no one has heard of /.
You guys are mean. First they the googled and now they get slashdoted....
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
Oh beautiful!
Let's add slashdot to our list of sites DDOSing us!
Wow, you Slashdot Editors like kicking people while they're down, huh?
And while we're at it, why not make the file redirect to www.sco.com? Oh wait... that's been done.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Google just proved that they aren't in the content business, just the search business. When Google made a rare and somewhat nonsensical editorial comment in the form of their modified logo, many people clicked the logo to see where it lead, and where it lead to was a Google image search that yeilded interesting results, so people clicked the images in the hope for information about Gaston Julia...
Google should have written their own article explaining why they decided that Gaston Julia was worthy of being honored. Instead, they simply supplied a suggested search query and passed the curious users to sites who weren't expecting the rush... if Google had asked, I'm sure they would have been able to get an academic to write a decent page to satisfy the curious users, but Google seems to have underestimated the power they have...
I was just about to point out the same thing. Oh well... I think I'll go and reload the site a couple more times, just to rub it in.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Smooth.
Imagine just how much money could Google make if they sold just a small ad on their home page on a 24-hour basis occasionally, maybe even limited to modifying the Google logo in an agreed upon way linked to a page on the sponsoring site. http://www.google.com has to be the most hit page on the planet right now, so such an ad would have awesome power and be able to command top dollar.
Google's clearly taking the high road by making their home page an ad-page zone. I wonder how long that's going to last after the IPO and by definition, profit-hungry interests (such as your 401k plan) get control of the company.
Page already loading slow, here's the full text
Using Google?
Looking for images of quaternion fractals?
On the 3rd of February 2004, this page (or rather the page that was here) was swamped by requests and the server subsequentially failed. The reason was traced to Google introducing a fractal looking logo (see below), which when clicked, performed an image search for "julia" and "fractal". The two most interesting resulting images on the top row of the list were on this page (or rather the page that was here).
[Image used without permission from Google]
In order to get this server functional again, the pages that were here have been moved somewhere else. It shouldn't be too hard to find them if you really want to, do a Google search for "Quaternion fractal" or if you would like to create your own Quaternion fractals try POVRay.
Please note that this is not a criticism of Google but rather an interesting dimension to the power they wield. They have hundreds (thousands?) of servers worldwide that distribute their traffic load. If even a small percentage of that traffic is directed to a single server.....what chance does it have?
Questions: Should Google ask permission before potentially sending huge traffic loads to a single page/server? Should they regulate traffic to individual sites/pages by changing the order of the search results?
Happy searching!
Google giveth
and Google taketh away
Blessed is Google?
[Roger Bagula]
Sig? What sig?
The server in question, by domain name at least, seems to indicate that Google's USA homepage was directing viewers on a path that led to a server in Australia. Just wondering... did any of the trans-oceanic network links show any visible spikes in traffic as a result of this event?
I'm a little surprised that this has never happened before, as they often have featured logos. I guess those fractals must have just looked too alluring, and people had to see them. Then again, i'm quite surprised that so many people click on the featured graphic, perhaps people who aren't familiar with Julia, and were interested in what the graphic meant?
The key difference here is that when something gets posted to Slashdot, people often have the ability to grab and post mirrors. Like this one, for instance.
(You're welcome.)
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."
Google clearly has an international network of highly powered servers that have the ability to send out content via HTTP. Maybe Google could open up a side business for those who need a lot of web capacity fast for a short duration, for those who want to keep their websites up despite a major media mention that will quickly subside.
And while reporting incapacitated australian univ servers on slashdot, Searchenginelowdown.com is being hosted on a new site called Searchenginedown.com
Free XBox, PS2
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.
Watch me pull a fractal outta my hat!
[Servers exploding in Australia]
Oops! Looks like I don't know m'own strenth!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
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.
Miss Gatsby: You're very cheerful this morning, Mr Fawlty.
Basil: (cheerfully) Yes, well one of the guests has just died.
(Polly slaps Miss Tibbs, who folds up and falls to the floor)
Basil: (to Polly) Oh, spiffing! Absolutely spiffing. Well done! Two dead, twenty five to go.
Help fight continental drift.
Here's the full text from the website tomorrow:
Browsing Slashdot?
Looking for the page complaining about Google?
On the 4rd of February 2004, this page (or rather the page that was here) was swamped by requests and the server subsequentially failed. The reason was traced to Slashdot(see image below) posting an article about a webpage about Google posting an image about fractals, which when clicked accessed our web page. The link went directly to a page about google (or rather the page that was here).
[Image used without permission from Slashdot]
In order to get this server functional again, the page that was here has been moved somewhere else. It shouldn't be too hard to find it if you really want to, do a Google search for "Using google fractal" or if you would like to complain more about google try googlewatch.
Please note that this is not a criticism of Slashdot or nerd but rather an interesting dimension to the power they wield. They have hundreds (thousands?) of members worldwide that distribute their traffic load. If even a small percentage of that traffic is directed to a single server.....what chance does it have?
Questions: Should Slashdot ask permission before potentially sending huge traffic loads to a single page/server? Should they regulate traffic to individual sites/pages by allowing accesses by karma? Why do so few of them have girlfriends?
Happy slashdotting!
Slashdot nerdeth
and Google geeketh away
Blessed is the dork?
The Google page was listed on Fark yesterday. So that site has been: 1. Googled 2. Farked 3. Now /.'ed
The unintentional DDoS trifecta!
No sig, sorry.
Since this came from a google search, there is a pretty simple way to prevent this from happening, without having Google do anything - use your robots.txt to stop google from indexing your site.
Google is opt-in. If you don't want to be indexed, don't be.
Ew... that's spammer talk. Google complies with robots.txt, but that's an opt-out signal. Those with no robots.txt are presumed to want to be listed. A true opt-in system would require an affirmative robots.txt before Google spiders a site... which isn't the reality.
I think slashdot is not happy with this. If google becomes the new standard for website destruction, what will slashdot do?
It could be argued that the only value left in slashdot is the ability to destroy entire webservers with a single post......
Fellowship 9/11
C'mon you geeks! Take off those pocket protectors and put on the gloves! Google's callin' you out!
I run a fractal-related site, and just the leftovers from people clicking through to sites that had links to my site was enough to give me 10x the traffic. I had calls from my host and a few other problems, so I took the web sites down for a few hours while trying to help some other folks figure out what was going on.
I've been slashdotted four times or so before, so I know what it's like. The server handled it just fine, it was the connection that was the trouble.
I'm glad that the initial onslaught is over, but I'm still seeing elevated traffic levels, and probably will for a few days. This is normal for any kind of slashdotting.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
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.
At 8:00 a.m. EST, my Mom IM'd me at school to tell me that the Internet as slow at home. At 9:00, my friend who uses my wiki told me that he had been letting it load for about an hour and it wasn't loading. The Xbox-Linux project's wiki also is hosted on my server, and it was inaccessible.
All these web sites are hosted on my little Linux box in my basement, on my parents' cable-modem with 40 KB/s up to the Internet. What happened to me was that the Google logo, linking to the image search for "julia fractals", had my friend Jonathan's site as the top hit. (The exact hit was this page.)
The page was all-but inaccessible, as was my server. I eventually SSH'd in, copied the files to my JHU web hosting space, and set up an Apache redirect to serve the files from there. JHU (my university) has a pretty big pipe, I've learned over the years I've been here. :-).
I mentioned this in a blog entry I made on the topic. It seems that now the search finds some other first hit, the .edu.au site mentioned in the story. Perhaps that's because my server was "Cthuugled" (eaten alive by Google, that is), and no one could reach the first link for so many hours.
|/usr/games/fortune
We can rely on the highly scientific Googlefight system.
Slashdot vs. Google - Winner: Google
Slashdotted vs. Googled - Winner: Googled
Clearly, Google is superior and far more dangerous.
Bitchslapped. Neat.
I would like to see Google create a link from the main "Google" picture to Slashdot, and at the same time get Slashdot to write a post about it linking to the Google site, and see who's servers drown first.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
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?
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.
Oh, the Irony.
First Google slashdots a site on recursive fractionated geometry, then the Slashdot editors invite the whole community to rubberneck.
Simple. We /. google.
Hey! come on! try dividing it by anything!
We have a bit of diliema with Google. On one hand, we get high Google rankings for search terms relevant to products we carry. On the other hand, Google does a complete index of our 4,000+ page site every week, and it takes several days.
We're on a wireless Internet connection due to severe lack of affordable Internet out here in the country, and they want to limit us to 30GB per month. I hate to complain to Google because we do get a lot of new customers from Google searches.
faster than a speeding popup...
more powerful than a Beowulf cluster of those...
able to destroy entire webservers with a single link..
Its Super Slashdot!
Sorry, Mr. Mxyzptlk made me do it. Cheers.
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
Get Google to buy OSDN and Fark, add a boobies section to /. and unleash the most powerful force the internet has ever seen... Will make mydoom look like a prank on a high school network.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
As a matter of fact, Paul already used a term for this in his page (check the second one he made after he was /.'d).
;)
He called it 'googleblatted'.
In honor of Douglas Adams (and his infamous Bugblatter Beast of Traal), I propose this become the official term for being blatted by google
I don't know about a trademark, but perhaps /. could patent it as a business method?
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
... can be found here.
I especially like the logo for Einstein's birthday (see March 14, 2003).
- shadowmatter
Reading Slashdot?