How to Prepare Your Website for Traffic Spikes?

In the Internet era, people are increasingly using their devices to cheer up, shop, and just relax. We are already used to buying online instead of going to the store — watch a movie at home instead of going to the cinema, etc. Especially during the holidays, weekends, or when offering discounts, people rush to buy online, play online, etc. As a result, many websites experience crashes or serious web traffic spikes. The question is, why did this happen?

It’s because these sites were not ready for so many requests.

Below we will examine why most sites are not ready for web traffic spikes, whether it is possible to plan for it and more.

In addition, WishDesk experts work on a highly efficient web service, which means that you will get the maximum benefits in half the time. If you have ideas for cooperating with us, just contact the WishDesk development company.

What are web traffic spikes and why do they happen?

The last two months have been alarming for many site owners, as their sites could not withstand the number of users. High traffic is a problem that is relevant not only during the quarantine period but also during sales and holidays.

Everyone knows that it is not only hackers are dangerous for sites, but also large traffic fluctuations. High traffic is certainly a good thing because it means more visitors on site who can become your customers. However, if your site is not optimized for high traffic, then you may encounter spikes.

Have you ever asked yourself how large websites handle the traffic? Indeed, the larger your site, the more conversion you need to process, and the harder it is to do. In order to cope with this, large websites must have powerful servers and a well-functioning system for monitoring spikes in traffic — at a minimum.

Web traffic spikes are when the number of requests for your product or service increases or decreases very sharply.

How much traffic can a website handle

Do you know what the maximum traffic your site can handle is? If you don't know then we suggest you find out. Below we show you one way to do an approximate calculation.

We will give you step-by-step instructions on how to measure the maximum number of visitors that can be simultaneously on your site. Let's go!

Step 1

Go to your Google Analytics to find out the average value of clicks.

Step 2

To find the average number of clicks you should:

enter Google Analytics - click to Audience - further click to Overview - there you will see the average number of pages per session.

For example, your session lasts 4 minutes and 7 seconds, and the number of Pages/Session is 3.72.

4 * 60 = 240
240 + 7 = 247 seconds
247 : 3.72 = 66 seconds
66 : 60 = 1.1 click

These results, i.e. 66 seconds, meaning that the user clicks about 1 time per minute.

Step 3

Next, we take the capacity of your server — for example, 97 requests/second.

97 * 60 seconds * 1 (number of clicks per minute) = 582

5820 is the maximum number of simultaneous visitors on your site!

Ways to handle website traffic spikes

1. Check the site capacity in advance

You must know your enemy to win!

Be ready to jump in high website traffic - you need to understand the maximum traffic level that your site can withstand. Do you know how much traffic a website can handle? Hire dedicated development team that can test your site capacity. The maximum amount of traffic is different for each site and depends on various factors, such as hosting, site content, etc.

Scaling up capacity in advance allows you to simulate spikes in traffic. This helps you measure the maximum number of visitors who can simultaneously work on your site, and see how your site works under the conditions of the greatest load.

2. Use a content delivery network (CDN)

High website traffic fluctuations lead to server failures. To prevent you from having problems with the server, just make sure that your variable traffic does not affect the server. This can be done using the CDN.

The main task of CDN is to accelerate the speed of content delivery regardless of the user's location and ensure uninterrupted traffic.

3. Do a ZIP compression on your site

If traffic jumps have already occurred on your site, then your main task is to manage bandwidth usage. Later all files unpack on the user side.

Such actions will help reduce the pressure on your server, and therefore increase the speed of loading the site. You can use ZIP compression to help compress your code.

4. Choose an appropriate hosting

Сhoosing the right web hosting support is like the land on which you build a house, the soil for your site. And for the house (site) to be ok for a long time, this foundation must be solid and reliable.

There are three main hosting types. Very often site owners choose shared hosting, but this is very inconvenient and doubles the risk of a server breakdown. The bottom line is that not only you but also other sites are on the shared server. It's like renting a room in someone else’s apartment. You are dependent not only on your own web traffic spikes but also on the traffic received by other websites on the same server. Therefore, it is better to choose shared hosting or VPS.

5. Reinforce your cyber-security

With the start of web traffic spikes, the risk of not only the site breaking from this increases but also the site's vulnerability to hacker attacks increases.

To protect your site from this threat, keep your site safe. Install SSL, which reliably encrypts the connection between your browser and server, can help you or let the WishDesk agency do it. Have a question? Write to our developers.

6. Optimize your website for speed and performance

Optimization of your site is an equally important component of all of the above. If your site has too much traffic on a website, you should help your server as much as possible by optimizinge all the elements on the site.

For example, you can optimize all images, as this will reduce the load time.

7. Do browser caching

Another way to regain the previous speed of your site is to do browser caching. This is especially true during traffic spikes, as this is one of the most common and easiest ways to reduce website load. This will help you temporarily solve the problem.

3 main problems that spikes in large website traffic can cause

you will lose your potential customers
you will spend additional funds on the restoration of your site
your sales will decline

Now you are ready for web traffic spikes

The WisDesk team hopes that you understand that web traffic spikes are no less dangerous than hacker attacks. We hope you find our tips useful and will know how to avoid a website crash during high traffic.

If you have doubts about the flexibility of your site and its optimization for spikes in traffic, or perhaps you`ve already had an experience with it, just contact DevOps service providers at WishDesk and we will solve this issue.

The main advantage for you is that we work on a highly efficient service. That is, we fulfill your task in a shorter time than before. We were able to accelerate due to the fact that The main advantage for you is that we work on highly efficient service. That is, we fulfill your task in a shorter time than before. We were able to accelerate due to the fact that we separate all the tasks we get into the smaller parts. Have an idea? Just contact the website development team at WishDesk.