Preparing for the Habra effect

The note is devoted not so much to possible methods of protection (they have already been written a lot about them), as to a review of a small list for a quick check in preparation for possible attendance jumps. Judging by the statistics of the load on electronic stores last week (when the Christmas sales season began in the West), even for large stores the response time can fluctuate by 20%, what about smaller websites?

Such testing must be carried out before the release of new products, as well as before the mass purchases season (for Russia this is the time on the eve of the New Year and Christmas). So where to start?

Point 1: server response time

Why do you need it? Find out how long your site responds when you try to access it. You can check this indicator with the help of fairly well-known services. In particular, it is:

• host-tracker.com , with which you can “tap” the site from different points of the globe and see the server response time;
• iwebtool.com also offers to check the response time (ping) to the server;
• With webo.in (fast registration is required), you can check not only the response time, but also the actual time it takes to create pages. The server is physically located in Russia, therefore it may be more preferable for Russian sites.

A good indicator here is the minimum time up to 500-1000 ms (better, of course, up to 200-300 ms).

Point 2: fault tolerance

Why do you need it? Actually, it is express check on Habra-effect. Here you can use the loadimpact.com service, with which you can get about the following picture (the service emulates finding several users on your site):

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The most important thing is that the schedule does not go up much (did not go away exponentially) with an increase in the number of users on the site and remained within 2-3 seconds (you need to take into account that physically checking is done from the other end of the Earth, therefore there are significant network delays for Russia they will not be).

If we are preparing for the Habra effect, then we need to withstand 50 simultaneous users on the site. Otherwise, we can limit ourselves to normal behavior at 20.

UPD (thanks to akira ): you should pay attention not only to the availability of sites, but also the availability of pictures when using them in posts that go to the main page. Often, virtual hosting simply can not cope with such a load. Post pictures on public resources (for example, pict.com ) to prevent such a situation.

Point 3: page loading speed

Why do you need it? Understand how quickly the pages of the site will be loaded from target users. There are many services here, we’ll dwell on some of them.

• YSlow for Firebug under Firefox. Here we are looking at a general estimate of at least 80 (preferably 90).
• site-perf.com . Quick estimate of download time, it is desirable to have no more than 4 seconds (due to the fact that the servers are not located in Russia, the rating is not so adequate).
• tools.pingdom.com . Similar service, only slightly worse in terms of data processing. Here you can focus on 4-6 seconds as a good indicator.
• webo.in. Here you can see how the load chart, and quickly estimate the speed itself. A simple estimate is preferably not lower than 70 (preferably not lower than 90). The server is located in Russia, so the data is most relevant.

As in the case of the Habra-effect, and when conducting mass promotions, it is important to prepare in advance so as not to lose the target users, but to offer them products or services of proper quality. Checking the above parameters will take no more than 5 minutes, but will help prevent possible losses in site visits and (or) income for an online store.

UPD: due to the large number of requests, our team decided to work hard in December and help everyone to cope with the attendance boom before the onset of the sales season.

Since even Google is going to take into account the download speed from the new year (most likely on the client), the use of any specialized solutions, for example, Web Optimizer , is becoming more and more attractive.