What causes massive traffic spikes to websites?

[Artashes]

For a few brief hours yesterday our forum was performing slower than usual. After speaking with our hosting partner, they informed me that we were receiving massive traffic from a couple of IPs, as a result of which they blocked a small range of IPs coming from Germany, of all places.

This made me wonder what causes massive traffic to take place from time to time, assuming it wasn't deliberate. Do such things always happen intentionally or does it sometimes happen randomly and/or as collateral damage due to other activity?

PS: Blocking that IP range fixed the issue.

 

[ExonHost]

We see sometimes our customer is facing like this issue. I thing it does happen randomly.

 

[Collabora]

A documentary was made about one of my customers. It has won awards at Sundance and has received international attention. Right now the site is sucking 30 GB/mo (small wp site). It has been nominated for an Oscar. I'll have to divert some additional server resources to the site on Oscar night.

 

[Artashes]

A documentary was made about one of my customers. It has won awards at Sundance and has received international attention. Right now the site is sucking 30 GB/mo (small wp site). It has been nominated for an Oscar. I'll have to divert some additional server resources to the site on Oscar night.

I'd love to watch the documentary, what's the name?

Trying to tie this to my question, though, in the case when no Academy Award was won, or even nominated for.

 

[Collabora]

I'd love to watch the documentary, what's the name?

Trying to tie this to my question, though, in the case when no Academy Award was won, or even nominated for.

Sometimes traffic spikes are for a good reason

The movie is Cartel Land and it is available on Netflix http://cartellandmovie.com/

Here is my customer's site: https://www.arizonaborderrecon.org. I rebuilt the site this December/January after their IT guy left with the "keys." They almost lost their domain name but I was able to snatch it just as it expired. Still a work in progress

 

[Artashes]

Oh yes, that documentary has been on my list for a while. I watched Sicario, I assume Cartel Land will be of same intensity, or better.

 

[d3vm3n]

I saw on mine that when I do some big websites backups my server is lagging a little. Beside that it just happen randomly.

 

[cheapdedicated]

Manytimes its because you have content that is relevant to that time thus a spike in traffic. Lets say you have content on kanye west and he dies, you may get loads of traffic a few days after he dies. NOTE am just using it as an example not wishing anyone dead.

 

[SenseiSteve]

That's interesting because I just blocked a couple of IPs originating from Germany for one of my personal sites.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Yes they seem to be using more European IPs now rather than Russia and China.

Maybe they think that these wont flag up as much and Asian IPs

 

[PeteCCS]

Hello,

I agree, a tv spot or good maketing can bring a lot of traffic and sometimes it is big spikes !

 

[emyhost]

The spike can due to vary reasons. Some times the scripting in your website may caused the spike too, and you are advised to check further in your log and which script/pages that the most traffic goes to.

Another reason may caused by the DOS attack too which may launched by your competitor and etc.