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Traffic Disaster due to Database error

Bad Experience with Database based scripts for Adsense (dynamic websites)

         

Ricky_G

6:00 am on Jan 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am feeling down right now. My Stupid host made some changes in its Database Server. Its a shared hosting and due to which my Adsense script (Database based) got down for one day.

In the mean time, All the crawlers came (Crawlers monitor my website everyday) and indexed the Database Error message.

Now, after a fight with the host, the script is up again, the traffic amount that is coming is same again but not targetted. CTR is low and so are the earnings. Quality of Organic traffic is down and I dont know how much time it will take to SEs to recover me the traffic I deserve.

Moral of the story: Try not to use any Database Scripts for Adsense. My Host (Westhost.com) is listed in one of the top 100 Webhosts on the net. But there are simply too many hassels with it.

I plan to change the host but it will mean more of the downtime. right?

Any suggestions guys? How to tackle such situations? Is there be a Server Error Message that can say to the crawler "Crawl back later"? which I can program in my Database script to show when nothing is working?

Your expert comments please!

McClaw

6:20 am on Jan 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



If you say that the SE's crawl your site regularly, they should pick up the pages soon again (Assuming that the problem has been corrected)

There's also the possibility that the search engines will see all the broken pages(that has been fixed again) as new updates to the pages.

So this "disaster" could work out quite well for you :)

Ricky_G

6:42 am on Jan 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



It has indexed it again but it seems like its taking time to return me the quality of traffic I was getting. I can still see the DATABASE Error pages in the SERPs

McClaw

6:50 am on Jan 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Most of the SE's will spider your site today, but only include the new pages a day or more after the spider.

If you want to see the last included date of your page, go to google, and open the cached version of your page

at the top it will show the date of that cached version, thats a fairly accurate way of judging when google last updated that page in their index.

[edited by: McClaw at 7:01 am (utc) on Jan. 12, 2006]

bluegum

7:01 am on Jan 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I had a similar experience a few months back. One of the host's servers went down and my entire site was down for around 48 hours. That was bad enough, but while they were fixing the issue they put up an absurd place holder index page (eg, " A new site will be available here soon" etc). Unfortunately, the crawlers came along and indexed the place holder page. Subsequently, the site disappeared from Google even after it was finally restored.

Thankfully, Google crawls the site fairly frequently, so it didn't take too long to bounce back. I also count it as a valuable learning experience. I've now moved the site to a much more reliable and supportive host that users clustered servers etc.

blueheaven123

8:41 am on Jan 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



if your website is crucial to you, like over 1k usd,
Then you should rent a dedicated server - $100 usd

Then you can hire a service admin to monitor and install
web services/ Maybe $200 usd monthly.

Dowtime might be 1-2 hours if you follow these steps
1)Rent the server
2)Hire Server Admin to set up web Services
3) Test that php is running
4) Install a clone of your webpage
5) Test that it works, then install real website
6) On your host site, ask him to set the ttl high
7) Point your domain to new host
8) Wait until the domain Transfer and you should be back
in 2 hours if done correctly

You will also get the benefit of having more bandwidth
, better speed, and your website should not go down very often, provided you get quality server and service admin.

This might make you more dollars in the long run, but its also a risk, if something happens like google removes your site and you dont have any $$ to pay for the servers.

I guess thats why its good to not put all eggs on one basket and turn your site into a service rather then an entertainment site.

jetteroheller

11:14 am on Jan 12, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



My simple advice is, never trust a to complicate mehtod.

I have just written several pages about this theme, how unreliable database constructions are, how fast a server can be crashed by suddenly more visitors.

My database generates on my computer the web site. All in simple pure html pages.

On the server are this html pages. That's security.