Slow Page Loads on Top Afiliate Challenge Website
As I am sure you have all noticed, during high traffic periods, the TAC website can sometimes slow down pretty badly. The reason for the delays is that the system updates the scores of a specific number of contestants on each page load. This was done to prevent the website from having to recalculate every single vote from day one forward on each page load - that would have been PAINFULLY slow.
Now that we are in the final week of voting and activity is picking up, we are serving about 3x the number of visitors we expected to be at this point. That means the TAC server is constantly calculating and recalculating every time anyone refreshes a page, casts a super vote, or views an audition. We are going to take some steps that should streamline the calculation process on Monday and that should reduce the page load delays.
The reason I wanted to post this is to let all of you know that on the final day of voting (June 14) when the clock strikes midnight CST the scores that you see on the website MAY NOT be the final scores.
Because only a handful of contestants’ scores are recalculated with each page load, it is possible that a contestant who purchased a number of super votes or had a last-minute voting frenzy might not have had those votes counted by the system at the precise moment voting stops. (Not to mention we will be doing a system wide vote audit that could tweak scores ever so slightly as well).
We have a lot to execute on our end over the next 7 days, so if we are a bit slower than normal to get to your emails, please be patient with us. If you have an emergency and I mean an EMERGENCY) in the final minutes of voting you can email me directly at thor@topaffiliatechallenge.com or call me directly at 402-212-5393. For clarification, an emergency is “THOR THE TAC SITE HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY THE TURKISH HACKER.”
An emergency IS NOT “Thor, I tried to wait till the last minute to process $100.00 in super votes and the website is loading pages too slowly for me to get them all in on time.”
All I can say is PLAN AHEAD and expect the site to drag a bit in the final hours as every single competitive contestant will be wearing the F5 key off their keyboards.
[…] I responded: Thank you for your email. My direct email address is thor@topaffiliatechallenge.com. We were aware of the website page load problems over the weekend. I addressed it here. […]