The EEVblog Forum has MOVED BACK! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 09:07:27 am
content: I have now moved the forum back to my old web host Hostmonster.com!The blog is still hosted on the troublesome Sitecloud server, so it was easiest for me to register the new domain eevforum.com to do this.Not sure if I will keep eevforum.com or go back to eevblgo.com/forum, but for now it will remain on the new name.Some people tell me separate forum domain name is not good for SEO? Probably right, but I kinda like it so far.Anyway, I think everything is back up and running, and I've got a handle now on deleting and rebuilding MySQL databases and manually moving the forum, so I'm now much more confident in moving and tweaking with the forum in the future.Let me know ASAP if you spot any problems.Speed seems almost instant compared to Sitecloud!Thanks.Dave.

author: RayJones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 09:40:06 am
content: Snap snap snap.Much more responsive at the moment, and hopefully will stay that way

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 02:40:45 pm
content: my avatar is missing

author: PeterG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 02:43:47 pm
content: Forum seems nice and quick now.Shafri, your not alone, seems i am now faceless as well. Small price to pay for a reliable forum i feel.

author: mitpatterson
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 04:03:59 pm
content: My gosh, so fast now, one issue i noticed, since i save my passwords, it won't put it in the new site and i forgot what my password was here, so i entered my user name, it said it would send a link to reset, that was about 3 hours ago, no link so far(yes i check spam/junk) so not sure if thats not set up right. But i did find it(options, show passwords) lol

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 04:14:11 pm
content: Quote from: Darkman1969 on January 12, 2011, 02:43:47 pmi get used to and like the smf already. i can live with the missing part. in fact, there are missing parts in the more expensive forum app that smf has.

author: Chasm
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 05:29:14 pm
content: The redirect to eevforum.com seems to be borked in some cases.If you have a link that includes index.php it redirects towww.eevforum.comindex.php- note the missing slash.Should be easy to fix by adding the slash in the right place. =)SEO....Any change will hit your Stats.I think the long term solution would be to move the forum to a subdomain i.e. forum.eevblog. This way you can point it to another server but it stays within the scope of a single domain. Maybe someone else is a bit more current on SEO theories. =)Problem is having the domain at a provider that allows to do so, and also to use a provider that allows such "external" domains.

author: Lance
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 06:01:37 pm
content: Seems much faster to me.

author: Ernie Milko
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 06:32:41 pm
content: SO VERY much better.I was beginning to give up, it was so slow.

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 08:00:16 pm
content: Really good responsiveness!

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 08:39:44 pm
content: what i fear is that if this is the like the beginning when the forum was transferred to sitecloud, all were doing well, until yesterday. maybe i'm just thinking too far forward. i just dont want the history to re-occur, or maybe its just the way it is.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 09:20:50 pm
content: Quote from: shafri on January 12, 2011, 08:39:44 pmFear not Shafri, the forum is back on the exact same ultra reliable server at Hostmonster like before the move to SiteCloud screwed up everything.The only issue might be if I move the Blog back over as well, will the shared server handle the load?Dave.

author: mitpatterson
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2011, 10:53:58 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 12, 2011, 09:20:50 pmNot sure if it will or not, what does Hostmonster guarentee you? in terms of ram and stuff like that? other thought would be get a shared "dedicated" server(you share the box, but you are guaranteed so much CPU use and ram)

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 01:16:37 am
content: Hostmonster worked pretty well before the move, so I didn't seem to be hitting any limits.The SiteCloud move was supposed to be strategic move for the future.I may eventually have to move do a dedicated or cloud server, but until such time as Hostmoster tap me on the shoulder and tell me I'm hogging resources, I'll stay with them.Dave.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 01:43:54 am
content: The blog has now also moved back to the Hostmonster server OK.I'm now thinking I'll move the forum back to it's original location of eevblog.com/forum just to maintain the SEO.I'll have the new eevforum name link to it though, and probably masked so you can use either.So if the forum goes into maintenance mode again soon, that's what I'm doing.Thanks.Dave.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 04:17:17 am
content: you know your stuff Dave, keep it up. take your time.

author: Time
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 04:33:22 am
content: My work blocks websites they feel present a security risk and for some reason this change no longer allows me to browse at work :/

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 05:28:50 am
content: Ok, I've moved the forum back towww.eevblog.com/forumThat keep all the external links, google search stuff, SEO etc.eevforum.com points to there now.I think I've got all the paths back and everything should be working fine. Attachments are still coping though, there are a LOT of them!There may be a few hiccups with email stuff, I need to wort that out.Both the blog and forum are now back at Hostmoster, just forget that whole sitecloud.com thing ever happened!Sorry about all the hassle, back to your regular program!Dave.

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 07:12:07 am
content: Dave,I'm sure I speak for everyone when I sayThanksfor all the hard work you've put into fixing sitecloud's stuffup.A Google search with 'sitecloud' and 'sucks' is starting to show more and more hits over the last few days..

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 12:34:53 pm
content: Thanks!!Dave for all the hard background forum work!

author: Time
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 04:03:44 pm
content: Yes, thank you!and on a side note since you moved the forum back towww.eevblog.comI can now access it at work again! Productivity shall resume as "normal".

author: zaoka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2011, 09:10:34 pm
content: Hey Dave check Invision Power Board. They just released a free addon for advanced SEO + code is Google optimized.. It has Blog addon as well, also Google friendly.For licence holders they do free forum upgrades and nothing is lost.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 15, 2011, 12:24:23 am
content: For those following the SiteCloud.com saga, they have finally admitted they screwed up big time:Quote

author: apex
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2011, 06:45:47 pm
content: Did you also do an update?I can see who is in a topic before clicking on it!Cool!apex

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 01:45:29 am
content: Quote from: apex on January 15, 2011, 06:45:47 pmsometime i got lines of members currently in topic. never caught my eyes before, just couples of members listed. so i guess this is new.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 04:44:56 am
content: Quote from: apex on January 15, 2011, 06:45:47 pmYeah, I added a few extra's to the forum.I won't be updating to Ver 2 of SMF until it goes public.Dave.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 10:35:13 am
content: To be honest I think people over push this SEO business, because that is what it is all about: business, many users have commented finding the forum on google when searching for the rigol or other stuff. I've setup websites before and they have got hits fairly quickly, the secret I think is just do it, do it right and you will reap. I setupwww.rotaract1070.org.ukfor my rotaract district and it very soon got a lot of hits, when I looked in the stats at the searches viewers had performed to find it I noticed that it was not far down the list from the well established UK national site that had been going for yearswww.rotaract.org.uk, and I did nothing special except for make sure I have plenty of relevant content.I think this SEO lark is for the wanker "webmasters" that want to get results onto crap in hours without having anything decent to share. of course if you have a major website and then move it you will loose a back log of search results that will remain whilst being broken links until your website is recrawled and climbs the popularity list again. then again when your some ecomerce website selling the same crap as the next man I guess fractional advantages make a difference

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 12:04:15 pm
content: When I first started my website just to get familiar with Wordpress etc, the google robots jumped on it very quickly and a search of my name and 'workshop' found the site pretty near the top of the list.I still have the same number of hits a week (fairly low) but with the same search, my site doesn't even register.This isn't a problem for me as I'm not try to make money of it but if it was a commercial venture, I wonder what the hell was going on.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 12:12:31 pm
content: well of course it depends on the size of your website and what you are doing. there probably are things you can do to help but really unless your trying to squeeze every ounce playing by the book tends to work quite well, word of mouth is a great way of spreading. Beleive it or not having a rushdenrotaract.org.uk (which now simply redirects to a section of the rotaract1070.org.uk) meant that someone goggling "dogging in rusdhen" (don't ask I have NO idea my website has nothing to do with that sort of thing) got us a hit, the only operative word being infact "rushden"

author: RayJones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 10:19:24 pm
content: OH NO,is it just me, or the forum has once again developed the speed wobbles?As I type, it is taking an eternity to load pages.It is 22:15 UTC 16/1/11 ATM.

author: mitpatterson
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 10:24:19 pm
content: Quote from: RayJones on January 16, 2011, 10:19:24 pmNot just you, i emailed Dave and he said its slow for him too, and also that he is seeing some sort of "CPU throtalling"

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 16, 2011, 11:30:29 pm
content: Yes, the site is being throttledBandwidth is in the order of 15-20GB/day.I can only presume that the DNS has finally filtered through the net and now the full load is on the Hostmonster server and it simply can't handle the amount of database requests.Looks like I might need a dedicated server...Dave.

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 12:52:29 am
content: That seems an awful lot of database requests when you consider the number of users and forum items on the site to be honest. I have now idea how to do diagnostics on the SMF software, but I think more investigations need to be done.

author: Chasm
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 01:23:47 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 16, 2011, 11:30:29 pmThat seems "a bit" excessive.What produces this amount of traffic, the video files?Quote from: EEVblog on January 16, 2011, 11:30:29 pmI think a bit more research is necessary.Well, you can solve any problem by throwing enough hardware at it but that is often not the solution, only a temporary fix.The forum is still rather on the small to tiny side of things, even for shared hosting.The blog is not that huge either. Not much content or comments compared to others with a wider scope of topics.Have wordpress or smf a tool to show you how many search engine bots are on the site?Could be a move related re-indexing of their content.Hmmm..... it could also be a indexing of eevforum.com, but that is a 301 redirect. - Still, if you can check URLs / referrers that may be a shot in the dark.

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 04:21:07 am
content: Quote from: Chasm on January 17, 2011, 01:23:47 amIt shouldn't be, the video is server from Youtube.Quote from: Chasm on January 17, 2011, 01:23:47 amJudging by my own website, search bots don't put a big load on the server, certainly not enough to explain that amount of bandwidth.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 04:34:31 am
content: Quote from: GeoffS on January 17, 2011, 04:21:07 amThe podcast 480x270 video files are however serviced locally on the server.There a several thousand who view the podcast version, so if you do the math the bandwidth figures come out right.That also does not include my other websites.Dave.

author: Chasm
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 04:44:04 am
content: Had some serious problems with the googlebot a while back, after a change they re-indexed the whole site. That pretty much toasted a dedicated server. It should be easy to check if such a thing is the case.Ah, Dave posted while I was typing so lets just say rephrase this and just say:If the video files are not the reason for the gigabytes of traffic there is another serious problem with the site.

author: williefleete
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 04:55:48 am
content: test postif the videos are hosted on another server it shouldnt affect the bandwidth on the servermodern search engines use the site content to index usually text so that'll be a few Kb or moreif this site is getting the bandwidth sucked out of it then there is either a tonne of users accessing or someone is downloading the entire site several times over

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 11:37:51 am
content: The bandwidth isn't really the biggest concern. It would be easy to move the downloadable video files over to Amazon S3 or another CDN.High CPU and database usage is almost certainly due to poor programming in the blog and forum software, and these could mostly be fixed by enabling content caching. The blog itself should essentially require zero database accesses once cached because there aren't thousands of comments (you can just update the cached copy when a new comment is posted) and there's no user login facility. I can't think of any reason not to enable very aggressive caching in Wordpress in the EEVblog's case.I've never administered an SMF installation, but it looks like it has some basic caching facilities, but these require the use of a PHP accelerator which the host may or may not support (most of these are commercial software, so it's unlikely that you'll get it on a shared server). The options are to rewrite bits of the forum to be less horrible (not trivial, but it might be a fun exercise) or move to a high-end virtual private server (not a $10/month one) or a dedicated server, or switch to a better piece of software.In Australia, two of the largest forum sites are Whirlpool, which uses completely custom software, and OCAU, which uses vBulletin, which is commercial software but not especially expensive. Most of the huge international forums seem to be using custom software.

author: Chasm
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2011, 08:24:10 pm
content: At the moment the video files are on the same machine.Serving large files is not that CPU intensive, but they can cause indirect problems if the provider throttles the bandwidth of the account/server after some amount of traffic. (After all there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth/traffic unless you pay real money for it.)For me a first step would be to turn of directory listing for the /video directory so that site crawlers don't see it. There are not only well behaved crawlers around.If bandwidth throttling is indeed a problem another step would be to move the videos to another server/account.I would go the sub-domain route, that way you can keep everything under the same domain name and still spread content over multiple servers.As joelby mentioned the blog could be heavily cached without too much impact, for the most part it is static.The forum is a bit more of a problem since it's contents are per definition dynamic. But then there does not seem to be that much traffic here. Hmmm, looking at the forum stats: 400k page views a month, 12k-15k page views a day, 4147 members, 2101 topics, 29493 posts.There seem to be a lot of guests online at the moment, are they bots or humans?There is also quite a lot of info open to the public. User profiles, user stats and so on and so forth. Restricting this to logged in users should reduce the server load further.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2011, 03:35:31 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 17, 2011, 04:34:31 amwhats the other websites?

author: DJPhil
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2011, 04:45:15 am
content: Quote from: shafri on January 18, 2011, 03:35:31 amI'm guessing Dave meansalternatezoneand friends.

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2011, 02:28:42 am
content: I was checking Alexa.com for a friend's web site stats, and decided to have a look at EEVBlog's. Now, I know they are a bit of a blunt instrument, but check thishttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/eevblog.comspecifically Pageviews/user.In 2010 it was hovering around 4 or 5, then all of a sudden this month it has shot up to 15. I don't believe that more people are looking at 3 times the number of pages that they were before. I'm wondering if an indexing spider has gone feral or something and is hitting the database every few minutes and indexing the entire thing, skewing the stats. It does look a bit DDOSy.

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2011, 02:41:27 am
content: Quote from: Zad on January 19, 2011, 02:28:42 amAnything's possible (it would be quite obvious from AWStats et. al.), but if it really is Google's bot that is causing an overload, you can set a crawl rate usingGoogle Webmaster Tools. Other search engines have different methods (e.g.Yahoo!)

author: Chasm
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2011, 03:29:11 am
content: Quote from: Zad on January 19, 2011, 02:28:42 amThe thing to remember about Alexa is that they track sites via their toolbar. That may not work to well with this audience since we know that most toolbars s*ck. Or at least I hope so. =)Other than that, the answer is hidden in both the host based and integrated statistic tools.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2011, 07:26:22 am
content: Quote from: DJPhil on January 18, 2011, 04:45:15 amthanx. thats a cool "original" website.