How have you Handled Large Traffic Spikes

[la2k16]

So I'm 7 months into this roller-coaster forum management journey, and I just experienced my first abnormally large spike

So usually I hover from around 20-120 online users (members /guests / bots) at a regular inactive period I say 10-20 period with spikes depending on how many social media articles I have linked out to facebook and twitter a day

2 days ago I posted quick article on the forum and also on the facebook and twitter site like normal.....and long story short today it's been shared over 1500 times on facebook, and drawn over 50,000 individual views to the thread.

I got a screenshot of the traffic at it's peak and here's what it looked like





Had 160 members pre-spike, sitting at 174 now. I'm trying my best to capitalize on the spike as I'm still sitting on about 600-700 online members throughout today. I have added an opt in message to float at the bottom of the screen and updated some links in the top banner above the content.

Any tips or stories on how you all have dealt with spikes in traffic?

 

[Pierce]

What was the bandwidth spike?

 

[la2k16]

What was the bandwidth spike?

My service provider only keeps limited numbers but around the peak i was hitting about 2 to 3 gigs per hour....my monthly average has been around 8 for an entire month total

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised the site only crashed once very briefly

 

[Pierce]

I'll recommend cloudflare.

They can take the brunt of an unusual spike. They have got good bandwidth graphs etc. They have a free plan and the paid for starting at $20.

I'd also put onesignal on the forum, even if it is not intergrated to alerts you would be able to re engage those users...