Wordpress is notoriously famous for going down during Digg Effect, a phenomena when 1000s of digg users try to visit a site in a very short time when it hits the front page, simulating a form of DDOS causing the site to go down. While usually most small sites with cheap hosts struggles with Digg Effect, large sites can often crumble to it’s feet because of poorly configured website with Wordpress installation.

Here we will discuss some steps that can be taken to insure that your site doesn’t go down the next time it hits the Digg front page.

1) Hosting: Let’s make it clear, one and for all. You cannot survive a digg effect if you are running on shared hosting plan. You probably won’t survive Digg effect even if you are on a small to mid-size VPS server. So the best way to absolutely insure that your site won’t go down during Digg is to make sure that you have a Dedicated hosting plan. Few things to consider while getting a hosting plan with Digg Effect in mind:

• Memory: Get at least 1-2 GB memory. This is more important that having faster processor. Don’t even waste time with hosting plans with 512mb of RAM.
• Processor: While it doesn’t hurt to get a decent processor, you don’t have to go all out for the fastest quad-core. A pentium IV 3.0Ghz at the minimum should do the job.
• Linux Installation: While there is no study out there that says a server with linux will handle traffic better that a server with windows installed. I can only tell you from my personal experience, while using both kind of servers, that Linux worked better/faster for me.

2) Apache Optimization: While Apache do have a reputation of being a memory hog. There are no other servers that can come even close to functionality, security, customization, documentations and fan following that Apache can provide. While some argue in favor of lighthttpd because it uses a much smaller memory footprint than apache, and usually goes alone well with Wordpress. If you are going to use Apache, I suggest that you do some research to optimize it with custom configuration, you can start by following this guide here: http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/article.php/3436911

3) Mysql Optimization: Because of the way Wordpress works and how easily Wordpress can grow with user comments and 100s of posts a month (yes I post 100s of posts a month on some of my blogs), this puts a toll on server performance with frequent Mysql queries. To survive Digg Effect for a medium to a large size blogs it’s absolutely necessary that you optimize your Mysql configuration. While there are many many books and articles out there to guide, here is something to start you of: http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/mysqlperformance.htm

4) PHP Optimization: Your Wordpress site performance can also be hurt by poorly configured PHP. So it is essential to optimize PHP with the same level of importance as you would with apache and Mysql. Here is a very nice site to start you of: http://phplens.com/lens/php-book/optimizing-debugging-php.php

5) Less Plugins: Some Plugins work by calling external java scripts which can heavily effect your server performance. I have seen people running 12-15 plugins in their Wordpress installation. Avoid using plugins that you can live without. This site provides some good pointers in favor of this argument: http://buzzdroid.com/wordpress/yslow-and-wordpress-plugins-kill-your-score/

6) Use wp-cache: Even though you should try to minimize your use of Wordpress Plugins. WP Super Cache (based on wp-cache) should be in your “must have plugins” list. This will convert your Wordpress pages into static pages automatically and help you with the load. Occasionally it effects server perform ace but updating readers comments hours after it has been posted. But this and other side-effects are worth the overall benefits that the plugin provides.

7) Host Your Pictures at Flickr: I can’t stress this well enough. Even with dedicated hosting you should try to host your picture in Flickr or similar picture hosting services. Specially if you have a site with heavy on pictures.

Hopefully these guidelines will help prepare yourself better when facing Digg Effects.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!