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Google Traffic Takes Down Web Site

Posted by simoniker on Wed Feb 04, 2004 09:11 PM
from the comparisons-inevitable dept.
The Internet The Media
bazonkers writes "Searchenginelowdown.com reports that it appears that the Google logo yesterday (honoring Gaston Julia) linked to the Google image search results for the words 'julia fractal'. The resulting traffic generated from clicking on that 'featured logo' incapacitated the servers of the top-listed images, hosted at an Australian university. This more than inconvenienced the owners of that site, who had to move pages and ended up displaying this page instead."
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  • Yeah (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dutchy Wutchy (547108) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:12PM (#8186069)
    Looks like no one has heard of /.

  • Slashdot Effect now (Score:4, Funny)

    by RoadkillBunny (662203) <roadkillbunny@msn.com> on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:12PM (#8186071)
    You guys are mean. First they the googled and now they get slashdoted....

  • Insult to Injury (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet (120004) * <mark@seventPASCA ... t minus language> on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:12PM (#8186072)
    (http://seventhcycle.net/)

    Oh beautiful!

    Let's add slashdot to our list of sites DDOSing us!

    Wow, you Slashdot Editors like kicking people while they're down, huh?

    And while we're at it, why not make the file redirect to www.sco.com? Oh wait... that's been done.

    • Damn (Score:5, Funny)

      by Raul654 (453029) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:14PM (#8186093)
      (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Raul654)
      I was just about to point out the same thing. Oh well... I think I'll go and reload the site a couple more times, just to rub it in.
      [ Parent ]

      • Re:Damn (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:16PM (#8186119)
        Oh well... I think I'll go and reload the site a couple more times, just to rub it in.

        Reading the article? You're new here, aren't you?
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Damn by corpsiclex (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:30PM
          • Re:Damn by caino59 (Score:3) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:30PM
        • Re:Damn by litheum (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:09PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

    • Re:Insult to Injury (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dukael_Mikakis (686324) <andrewfoerster&gmail,com> on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:18PM (#8186143)
      I hope /. doesn't lose its rep as the premiere internet stampede as people start referring to the "Google effect".

      Much as I enjoy perusing information (and I do follow the links), this does raise a good question. Obviously, it's generally a good thing for a website to get traffic (usually, that's why the website's there), but are there moral implications for overloading a perfectly innocent site (fortunately, this site seems academic, so we aren't hurting business, per se)? Should we have a guilty conscience for bring down servers as wantonly as we do? I think not, as the Internet is open and free and who's going to stop us, but it's an interesting point they raise.

      Reminds me of when I served at a restaurant and managers would complain when business was slow, but they'd get equally upset if a couple of buses pulled in and we were slammed with 100+ customers all at once. With so many customers, it was tough for us to give them good service, much less take good care of the customers we already had. I guess the exposure Google (and /.) gives can be, as they say, as much a blessing as a curse.
      [ Parent ]

      • Re:Insult to Injury (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 00420 (706558) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:27PM (#8186221)
        Should we have a guilty conscience for bring down servers as wantonly as we do? I think not, as the Internet is open and free and who's going to stop us

        The fact that somebody can stop you is not what makes something bad.

        Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying bringing down servers is a horrible thing, I'm just saying your argument sucks.
        [ Parent ]
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Insult to Injury by 00420 (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:30PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Insult to Injury by JPriest (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:35PM

      • Re:Insult to Injury (Score:5, Insightful)

        by the_mad_poster (640772) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:42PM (#8186343)
        (http://www.gh-sts.com/HOWTO | Last Journal: Tuesday November 01 2005, @09:39PM)

        I think not, as the Internet is open and free and who's going to stop us, but it's an interesting point they raise.

        Technically speaking, there are a lot of immoral things that nobody is going to stop you from doing. If a kid hits their ball in your yard, you can just keep the gate locked and throw the ball in the trash. Doesn't mean it's right (unless they're doing it just to irritate you or something).

        Some netizens don't like to admit the fact, but there is a certain level of responsibility that you need to have to partake in the Internet. Everyone is expected to do their fair share to keep things running, but a lot of people shirk that and just run rampant over everyone else. From networks bogged down by bandwidth hogs stealing movies and music to spammers to Slashdot, some people insist on just wantonly snatching everything they can grab and running for the hills.

        Is anyone going to stop you? No, of course not. However, after awhile, you'll be left with nothing else to grab because nobody will see any value in providing anything for anyone else. Make it a hassle for people to give you stuff for free, and they just won't give it to you anymore.

        [ Parent ]

        • Pizza Overload (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:16PM (#8186550)
          When I worked summers up on Cape Cod Mass at a family-owned pizza shop, a couple times during the summer we'd have the /. pizza effect -- the local sea camps would call in an order for 200 pizzas, or a couple of tour busses would pull in the lot with 100 hungry riders.

          Did they call in advance? Did they ask permission to swamp us? Did we redirect them out the door and decline their order? Of course not. Variability in demand is a part of business.

          The same goes for the half-dozen toys that Time Magazine says are the hot Christmas items, which suddenly disappear from the shelves. Should shoppers be restricted from buying them in order to maintain a few on the shelves?

          Suddenly popular websites have the same consequence to the consumer - unavailability of supply. People find alternatives, come back later, etc.

          So am I missing something dramatically new here?
          [ Parent ]

          • Re:Pizza Overload (Score:5, Insightful)

            by the_mad_poster (640772) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:28PM (#8186626)
            (http://www.gh-sts.com/HOWTO | Last Journal: Tuesday November 01 2005, @09:39PM)

            Yes, actually - the Internet doesn't fit into the typical capitalist mold. The web fits fairly well now that marketroids have utterly mangled it, but the Internet as a whole doesn't, and certainly nice resources that are offering free information don't.

            It would be more analgous to someone pinning up a "free food" flyer all over town for a soup kitchen and all sorts of people flooding the place whether they need to or not. On top of that, there are a lot of Slashdot readers here, myself soon to be included, who could easily mirror content to help divert some of the load. It wouldn't take that much extra effort to have people sign up to post mirrors of sites or to post a Google cache, etc. instead of just crushing some poor guy's webserver who just wanted to share a spiffy project he did with the world. Slashdotting some poor guy who did something neat just because nobody could be bothered to ask someone to set up a mirror is just plain rotten - ESPECIALLY when THEY'RE footing the bill and getting no return.

            [ Parent ]

            • Re:Pizza Overload (Score:4, Interesting)

              by 10101001 10101001 (732688) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @11:01PM (#8186780)
              (Last Journal: Thursday October 04, @07:15AM)
              Sorry, but you're wrong. There's two major problems with what everyone has stated up to this point (include you). For starters, the web uses a protocol that's inherently master/slave based. Because of this, anyone who hosts a website has an inherent ability to offer traffic policing to customers to prevent costing exhorbants amount of money. Offering/not-offering this feature is a part of the free market system upon which capitalism is likely to gain customers. Even those companies who don't offer such a feature might begin offering a p2p solution to http (a mix of http and bittorrent, possibly). The second point is that you, yourself, use an isp of some kind. When you can't access a web site because of of a /.ing or a "google-ing", you're not getting everything out of the internet. Not only that, but the 20 or 40 requests an ISP gets to get a website is 20-40x more bandwidth than if the isp cached requests. So, in effect, there's an obvious market for isps who provide caching, not only because of the direct bandwidth savings for themselves but also through the marketing about being able to see /.ed sites (though I'm sure marketers can create a better buzz phrase). There's also traffic shaping/policing to encourage the use of their squid or other web proxy. So, in effect, there is an economic solution to the problem at hand. There's also the fault of the people who put up web pages that get /.ed, as they bitch and moan instead of trying to find a technological solution to the problem. A web server can be made into a p2p distribution system to handle the load instead of crapping out when it runs out of connections. And ISPs can benefit by marketing their caching technology (fact is, HD space + CPU power are still growing massively faster than bandwidth rates, so caching conceivably is to be the fastest for some time to come).
              [ Parent ]
            • Re:Pizza Overload by DarthTaco (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @11:15PM
            • Bittorrent ? by RedLaggedTeut (Score:1) Thursday February 05 2004, @05:39AM
            • mirrors and copyrights? by Crispy Critters (Score:2) Thursday February 05 2004, @03:02PM
          • Re:Pizza Overload by s20451 (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:56PM
          • Of course it's not ethical by Anonymous Brave Guy (Score:2) Thursday February 05 2004, @07:27AM
          • Re:Pizza Overload by scrytch (Score:2) Thursday February 05 2004, @10:26AM

        • Re:Insult to Injury (Score:5, Insightful)

          by s20451 (410424) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:21PM (#8186585)
          (Last Journal: Wednesday December 13 2006, @06:43PM)
          If a kid hits their ball in your yard, you can just keep the gate locked and throw the ball in the trash.

          Good point, and I agree with your post, but I think it goes deeper than that. Here we have two big internet engines (Google and Slashdot) piling hits on small research servers that can't take them. You can make the case that this is the net equivalent of a major corporation dumping toxic waste -- or some similar "big guy dumps on little guy" analogy. In your example, throwing out the ball is likely to get your house egged. But what leverage do you have to force Slashdot to be a good net citizen? Arguably very little.

          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Insult to Injury by syzme (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:44PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

      • Re:Insult to Injury (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FsG (648587) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:30PM (#8186639)
        (http://fsg.botservice.net/)
        but are there moral implications for overloading a perfectly innocent site

        Oh, boo hoo. Any webmaster worthy of that title would have anticipated this possibility, and done something to handle it. Options range from using mod_bandwidth [cohprog.com] (or similar tools at the firewall level) to finely control how many people can access the server at once, to using a script to block any specific referrer once they send you 10000+ hits in one day (or redirect them to everyone's favorite site). Better yet, set up a Google adwords account beforehand and become a millionaire off the Google-dotting.

        This won't stop the server from getting hammered with requests, but it will help significantly, as each request will be limited to however many bytes it takes to drop a TCP connection.

        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Insult to Injury by pod (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @11:09PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Insult to Injury by mdavids (Score:1) Thursday February 05 2004, @03:48AM
      • Re:Insult to Injury by zhenlin (Score:1) Thursday February 05 2004, @04:08AM

    • The Kipper and the Corpse: (Score:5, Funny)

      by bstadil (7110) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:27PM (#8186227)
      (http://blog.stadil.com/)
      Reminds me of the scene from Fawlty Towers the The Kipper and the Corpse:

      Miss Gatsby: You're very cheerful this morning, Mr Fawlty.

      Basil: (cheerfully) Yes, well one of the guests has just died.

      (Polly slaps Miss Tibbs, who folds up and falls to the floor)

      Basil: (to Polly) Oh, spiffing! Absolutely spiffing. Well done! Two dead, twenty five to go.

      [ Parent ]

    • Re:Insult to Injury (Score:4, Informative)

      by Kris_J (10111) * on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:41PM (#8186333)
      (http://www.krisjohn.net/ | Last Journal: Friday January 19 2007, @01:58AM)
      Think that's bad? It's number 17 on Blogdex, and rising.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Insult to Injury by Bill_Royle (Score:3) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:26PM
    • flashcrowds by grey1 (Score:1) Thursday February 05 2004, @05:38AM
    • Re:Insult to Injury by gnu-generation-one (Score:1) Thursday February 05 2004, @08:23AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • Obligatory... (Score:3, Funny)

    by goldspider (445116) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `97ekardra'> on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:13PM (#8186076)
    (http://goldspider.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 18 2005, @10:54AM)
    ...and this sort of thing is news on SLASHDOT???
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Ahh yes... by Raynach (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:13PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • I wonder how you abbreviate that (Score:3, Funny)

    by Daverd (641119) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:13PM (#8186085)
    (http://dav-text.sourceforge.net/)
    So if a Slashdotting is abbreviated as "/.ed", I guess this site was 100000000000000000... well you get the point.

  • Oh mighty Google... (Score:5, Informative)

    by LostCluster (625375) * on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:13PM (#8186089)
    Google just proved that they aren't in the content business, just the search business. When Google made a rare and somewhat nonsensical editorial comment in the form of their modified logo, many people clicked the logo to see where it lead, and where it lead to was a Google image search that yeilded interesting results, so people clicked the images in the hope for information about Gaston Julia...

    Google should have written their own article explaining why they decided that Gaston Julia was worthy of being honored. Instead, they simply supplied a suggested search query and passed the curious users to sites who weren't expecting the rush... if Google had asked, I'm sure they would have been able to get an academic to write a decent page to satisfy the curious users, but Google seems to have underestimated the power they have...
  • google did it yesterday . .. by nil5 (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:13PM
  • Where's Google Cache? by maliabu (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:14PM

    • Re:Where's Google Cache? (Score:4, Informative)

      by LostCluster (625375) * on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:24PM (#8186197)
      The Google Cache doesn't contain any images. If you look at the cached version of a page, you get the cached HTML supplying the text, and either the images pulled from the server, or missing image icons in their place.
      [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • Of course... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:14PM (#8186099)
    The resulting traffic generated from clicking on that 'featured logo' incapacitated the servers of the top-listed images, hosted at an Australian university. This more than inconvenienced the owners of that site...
    So, naturally, let's post them on the front page of Slashdot.

    Smooth.
  • /. effect by provocative (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:15PM

  • Should Google try to convert its traffic to money? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster (625375) * on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:15PM (#8186115)
    Imagine just how much money could Google make if they sold just a small ad on their home page on a 24-hour basis occasionally, maybe even limited to modifying the Google logo in an agreed upon way linked to a page on the sponsoring site. http://www.google.com [google.com] has to be the most hit page on the planet right now, so such an ad would have awesome power and be able to command top dollar.

    Google's clearly taking the high road by making their home page an ad-page zone. I wonder how long that's going to last after the IPO and by definition, profit-hungry interests (such as your 401k plan) get control of the company.
  • TEHE by llZENll (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:15PM

  • Full text (Score:5, Informative)

    by trickycamel (696375) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:16PM (#8186122)
    Page already loading slow, here's the full text

    Using Google?

    Looking for images of quaternion fractals?

    On the 3rd of February 2004, this page (or rather the page that was here) was swamped by requests and the server subsequentially failed. The reason was traced to Google introducing a fractal looking logo (see below), which when clicked, performed an image search for "julia" and "fractal". The two most interesting resulting images on the top row of the list were on this page (or rather the page that was here).

    [Image used without permission from Google]

    In order to get this server functional again, the pages that were here have been moved somewhere else. It shouldn't be too hard to find them if you really want to, do a Google search for "Quaternion fractal" or if you would like to create your own Quaternion fractals try POVRay.

    Please note that this is not a criticism of Google but rather an interesting dimension to the power they wield. They have hundreds (thousands?) of servers worldwide that distribute their traffic load. If even a small percentage of that traffic is directed to a single server.....what chance does it have?

    Questions: Should Google ask permission before potentially sending huge traffic loads to a single page/server? Should they regulate traffic to individual sites/pages by changing the order of the search results?
    Happy searching!

    Google giveth
    and Google taketh away
    Blessed is Google?
    [Roger Bagula]

    • Using my time machine .... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dukael_Mikakis (686324) <andrewfoerster&gmail,com> on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:28PM (#8186237)
      Here's the full text from the website tomorrow:

      Browsing Slashdot?

      Looking for the page complaining about Google?

      On the 4rd of February 2004, this page (or rather the page that was here) was swamped by requests and the server subsequentially failed. The reason was traced to Slashdot(see image below) posting an article about a webpage about Google posting an image about fractals, which when clicked accessed our web page. The link went directly to a page about google (or rather the page that was here).

      [Image used without permission from Slashdot]

      In order to get this server functional again, the page that was here has been moved somewhere else. It shouldn't be too hard to find it if you really want to, do a Google search for "Using google fractal" or if you would like to complain more about google try googlewatch [googlewatch.com].

      Please note that this is not a criticism of Slashdot or nerd but rather an interesting dimension to the power they wield. They have hundreds (thousands?) of members worldwide that distribute their traffic load. If even a small percentage of that traffic is directed to a single server.....what chance does it have?

      Questions: Should Slashdot ask permission before potentially sending huge traffic loads to a single page/server? Should they regulate traffic to individual sites/pages by allowing accesses by karma? Why do so few of them have girlfriends?
      Happy slashdotting!

      Slashdot nerdeth
      and Google geeketh away
      Blessed is the dork?
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Full text by IMSoP (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:40PM
      • Re:Full text by mark-t (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:56PM
        • Re:Full text by IMSoP (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:10PM
      • Re:Full text by Aneurysm9 (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:01PM
    • Re:Full text by Anonymous Coward (Score:3) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:54PM
      • Re:Full text by swv3752 (Score:2) Thursday February 05 2004, @02:45PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • One day, just for fun.... by rasafras (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:16PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • International bandwidth crunch? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster (625375) * on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:18PM (#8186139)
    The server in question, by domain name at least, seems to indicate that Google's USA homepage was directing viewers on a path that led to a server in Australia. Just wondering... did any of the trans-oceanic network links show any visible spikes in traffic as a result of this event?

  • Surprising (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Aneurysm (680045) on Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:18PM (#8186146)
    I'm a little surprised that this has never happened before, as they often have featured logos. I guess those fractals must have just looked too alluring, and people had to see them. Then again, i'm quite surprised that so many people click on the featured graphic, perhaps people who aren't familiar with Julia, and were interested in what the graphic meant?
    • Re:Surprising by tachin (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:38PM
    • Re:Surprising by Perianwyr Stormcrow (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:03PM
    • Re:Surprising by ggvaidya (Score:1) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:23PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Surprising by brucmack (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @10:24PM
    • Re:Surprising by iabervon (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @11:18PM
    • Re:Surprising by tconnors (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @11:19PM
  • Great Idea by russianspy (Score:2) Wednesday February 04 2004, @09:19PM
  • I wonder who generates more traffic, google or slashdot... Google has far more traffic, I'm certain, but Slashdotters travel very specific links.

    What's more dangerous to your bandwidth - top link on a google doodle or a slashdotting?
  • Slash versus Goog