backdraft7 - 9:09 pm on Feb 2, 2011 (gmt 0)

@tedster - can't really pin anything down except that the site seems to turn on and off at random times.
I was comparing sales to last year...and each day there would be sales at regular intervals, say 3am, 5am, 6am, 6:30am, 7:15am, 8:05am, 8:50am, 9:20am, 10:45am, 11:50am all the way through midnight.
Now, when we experience these "outages" key pages stop getting traffic (although some server traffic remains) and we see more like 7:30am and the next sale is 7:15pm then the regular sales might resume, or not. There is DEFINITELY a s switch being turned on and off.

Here are the possible reasons:
1. It's all in my imagination - Not bloody likely.
2. Our SERPS have complete vanished. - Not happening.
3. The entire internet broken temporarily. - NOT likely.
4. Every human on the planet was transported to planet X for the day. - NOT likely.
5. Our site suddenly stop converting for NFR. Not likely.
6. There is a mouse gnawing on the CAT-5 cable in our secure dedicated hosting data center - Not Likely.
7. Our market is saturated. - Not likely.
8. There is an all day Gomer Pyle marathon on TV and everyone is preoccupied - Not Likely.
9. The economy has tanked an nobody is buying - possible...and if so, very worrisome.
10. Google is messing with something, again. - VERY likely.

I see only two plausible answers. #10 is the most likely. Trying to discover the "why" is like trying to track down D.B Cooper. The old data center check tools used to work nicely in watching changes come down the line, but apparently those have been hobbled. I'd love to dig deeper in to GA and add more tracking, but to tell you the truth, I feel the tracking I am using already may be enough for them to throttle me. I just don't trust them. I guess I'll do what I always do, sit and wait for the smoke to clear again. It always does, but these outages really hurt.

I run a utility on my server called MUNIN. Today the apache volume is very low and in spurts. Very atypical for this time of year. Yeah, I know there is a big snowstorm out there today, but those usually have the opposite effect on sales as everyone is at home goofing off.