This site??

[SMEE]

Am not meaning to sound cheeky or that, as i think this is a great site and i wouldnt be here otherwise but.......it is by far the slowest site I use. is this a server issue?

[CaleyD]

It will possibly have been extra slow the last couple of days due to the sheer volume of site visitors.  The number of visitors to the site has near trebled since the news about CC broke and the sheer volume of posts is putting extra strain on the database.  At one point yesterday we were about a baw-hair from losing the site altogether!!!

As for general speed in comparison to other sites, it all depends what other sites you are comparing it too.  Many other fans sites are not as "feature rich" as this site.  And the "big" sites will be on hardware costing tens to hundreds of times more than we can afford.

[SMEE]

I dont actually have that many sites i go to. only about 5. I spose the one most comprable is my u2 forum. I checked the numbers to compare....140 000+ threads with over 4m posts and 52000 users. Its quick but I think the ppl that run it a tech heads and like technology which is on the money.

As I say....i was just curious and meaning no offence

[CaleyD]

No offense taken.

[Scotty]

OK - this might get a little technical but stick with me for a bit ....

We are always conscious of trying to make the site as quick as possible and do everything we can on our side to make sure it is. we optimise the database regularly (nightly), we check error logs and try to make sure that nothing we control is causing errors and therefore slowness, and we also try to hack or optimise code on various pages so that we can enable as many features as we can without going overboard and affecting performance (a tricky balancing act).

However, we dont control the web server itself, our hosting company does. Like most hosting companies the majority of their servers have hundreds if not thousands of websites contained on them. this is "shared hosting" which is designed to keep everything cost effective. The downside is that because you share a machine with these other sites, if they dont optimise their stuff or they get massive traffic on a daily basis it can affect performance on all sites who share that server.

The other end of the spectrum is "dedicated hosting" which basically means you have a whole machine to yourself and the whole site should run like **** off a shovel !!!! However, this is phenomenally expensive - $400, $500, $600 or even more PER MONTH depending on what you require. A site like you described with as many hits, posts and members probably uses dedicated hosting of some form because they will either have regular advertisers or make decent cash from ads or other affiliate schemes .... unfortunately, we only manage to cover our current costs with our advertising !!

In the middle of this there is a growing market for medium cost servers and this is something we are definitely interested in looking at as and when we can pay for it via advertising or sponsorship. Our existing host has recently introduced such a service which they have called "Private Servers". This will allow sites to have their own 'virtual machine' on a server that only has a finite number of customers assigned to it. We can choose how much memory and cpu is reserved for us and the higher we go, the faster the site should get as no-one else is chewing up resources. Our monthly cost for what appears to be the optimal setup for our needs would be somewhere between $75 and $100 per month.

so there you have it in a nutshell ......

[tm4tj]

Just as I thought Scotty.

[beachcomber]

interesting, veeeery interesting. (said in best Marius Niculae accent)

I've oftened wondered about the economics of web site operation, given that every Tom **** and indeed Harry has one now.

If it's not too confidential, what and how do advertisers pay for appearing on here - do they pay so much for each time someone clicks on the link - and, is the advertising decided through those darn spider thingys analysing the text ???

These feckin spiders probly know more about me than I do - told you they were the devil's disciples

[CaleyD]

It is true that anyone can have a website these days.  Many Internet Service Providers will actually give it's customers "free" space to put up personal web pages and the like but these often have many restrictions and may even be littered with their adverts earning them income so in reality they aren't really free.

Perhaps if Scotty gets the time he could do a short history of all the phases this website has gone through and how it has progressed from the hosting side of things and the pro's and con's of each.

The advertising side of it is pretty straight forward.  We have an account with Google Adsense.  We add code to the site which allows them to display their adverts and we get paid a commission.  The actual amount we get for each advert varies a good bit.

One thing I would like to highlight is that clicking on loads of adverts thinking your helping increase the sites revenue doesn't do us any favours.  Google didn't get rich by allowing people to abuse these systems and they are quick to pick up on it if it is happening.

Other than Google generated adverts we do have the function to cater for individuals/companies who may wish to advertise on the site.  No matter what the size of the company or the budget they have then we can come up with a package that suits.  You may have noticed adverts for the guys who donate pictures for the gallery etc, that's just our way of giving something back to them and if any company out there wants to offer something to the fans in return for an advertising slot then we are more than happy to try and facilitate them.

[CaleyD]

One other thing, google adsense spiders and adverts do not collect individual user data in the way that many other advertising companies do, so you can rest easy on that one.

[Scotty]

If it's not too confidential, what and how do advertisers pay for appearing on here - do they pay so much for each time someone clicks on the link - and, is the advertising decided through those darn spider thingys analysing the text ???

These feckin spiders probly know more about me than I do - told you they were the devil's disciples

Google pays when people follow the links after clicking on an advert. it doesnt pay a lot but it ticks over and just about covers our current running costs. The Adsense spider monitors the adverts that appear and any payment we receive is based on quality of the click rather than sheer quantity.

As for "normal" advertising - we dont currently have any official 'sponsors' so adverts you see are either for affiliate deals where we might make a commission if you sign up, for people or businesses that have provided in-kind services such as NorthSport, Trevor Martin etc or for others associated with the club in some way such as banners we display for the club shop, supporters trust etc.

If anyone is interested in advertising then we do have guidelines of what the going rates are for advertising on pages with the kind of traffic we get but as advertisers are likely to be local to Inverness we wont necessarily stick strictly to that and would deal with potential advertisers on a case by case basis. so if you know anyone interested, let both them and us know !!! If we do manage to get a decent sponsor deal then the first thing users would probably see would be a speed increase in the site as we would likely put it towards a better hosting arrangement (as mentioned previously).

[beachcomber]

thanks guys, i am suitably enlightened

[Yngwie]

Perhaps if Scotty gets the time he could do a short history of all the phases this website has gone through and how it has progressed from the hosting side of things and the pro's and con's of each.

How about a book!

History of the website, relations with the club, the media appearances, infamous posters and threads, the scandals, Mrs Mann......

And after the book, the film. Scotty and Don, who do you want to play you?

[Scotty]

And after the book, the film. Scotty and Don, who do you want to play you?

Well, since John Candy is already dead and Mr Blobby has other committments, perhaps IHE could play me or failing that maybe Brad Pitt  :rotflmao:

gives me an idea for another thread though .........

[Guest TinCanFan]

A book??!!?  Nah, CaleyThistleOnline: The Musical would be far better. :015:

[CaleyD]

Scotty and I both have a good few years ahead of us (with any luck) and I'd like it to remain that way so the book will have to wait  :015:

[beachcomber]

and Beth Ditto could be IHE

Come to think of it, have you ever seen Beth Ditto and IHE in the same room

[Guest TinCanFan]

Has a dog done a little accident on her right leg?

[SMEE]

Google pays when people follow the links after clicking on an advert.

I am busy working on a FREE SEX AND A CHOCOLATE BISCUIT advert for google. Bound to make fortune :021: