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49 Comments
- grendelboogie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+75No, we're not giggling. Unfortunately, in the articles that msaleem cites, there is a some inaccurate information. We don't discuss our infrastructure much, so it's easy to understand why the information would not reflect our actual server environment. Here are some examples without going into too much detail.
1. We don't have 75 Web servers. We have approximately 1/5 of that number. We run twice the number of Web servers we need in order to handle unexpected load or unexpected failure of up to half the cluster. The rest of the servers in our datacenter are database servers, development and testing servers, monitoring and management servers, insert server function here, etc.
2. We do use gzip compression, but we don't use mod_gzip on our Apache servers. If you use this tool, http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://digg.com/, instead of the one cited in the article, you can see that we are using gzip compression. A packet capture would also confirm that for .html and .css, we use compression. We don't currently compress javascript, though we may in the future. - rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31Interesting article.
1st point response:
When Digg released bigspy, I started using that as my home page. I would miss it if they gzipped site.
2nd point response:
It may seem that the server ratio is inefficient, but doesn't this provide for scaling and possibly other services from Digg not yet released to the public?
3rd point response:
I am not sure how this is implemented, but if it saves Digg money, they should go with it. - otheruser, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27digg destroys the efficiency of its users.
- patience, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18We should be worrying about OUR own efficiency!
How many HOURs have WE lost on Digg?
Wasting time over and over. - msaleem, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Thanks for the clarification grendelboogie. I will note those corrections.
- Cytranic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Thank god someone from the Digg team came here to debunk this crap. I'm so sick of hearing about Digg's datacentre from users who have no clue. I love how people just make ***** up. Thank you for responding to this crap.
- grendelboogie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12@madaxe42
We do use memcached and it does significantly help with the load on the database servers. - verifex, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I understand that diggers are obsessed with Digg, but this is a bit silly. Anything goes when it has Digg in the title I guess.
- msaleem, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Thanks for the well articulated response rasterbator. Those have been hard to come by lately. Cheers, and thanks for reading.
- Brajeshwar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Nice article and the points applies to any growing site and not just digg. Btw, I am seeing a lot of Guardian Angel, Momma's Boy treatment to Digg these days. We're not sure but Digg's tech team may be giggling at us!
- pwallroth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8The only part of the site that is way too slow for me but I use it anyways is when there are a couple hundred comments loading. I'm just waiting for this to get fixed.
- MAdaXe42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Grendelboogie - am I right in thinking that you use memcached? If so, that's also something worth mentioning in terms of 'efficiency', as I've no doubt it saves you a huge amount of database power.
M - dreamlayers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Digg can be addictive. However, I suspect that those who are addicted to Digg would just focus on other addictions if Digg didn't exist.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I don't care if its efficient or not, the only thing I have noticed is that the pages load too slow.
And there's still no quote support.
[quote][/quote]
[quote][/quote]
[quote][/quote] - Dycacian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If Digg took the approach of "I like the way it is" Digg wouldn't be around in a year. You have to constantly try to improve on what you have. In the age of the internet, change is mandatory. People are giving advice, though it sounds like much of the advice is based on assumptions that may or may not be correct. At this point, it seems to me, that Digg is doing a good job of changing with the internet.
- RSCruiser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Dialup is not the issue. I have 8mb cable and a relatively decent machine and still experience this on stories with a lot of comments.
- zdiggler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Digg is not very effiecient. its got flaw.
Only the comment that was top 10 get digg up or down. the ones in the bottoms mostly stay at +1 level. - timdorr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Nope, that's right. It also makes sure to use a 301 redirect so search engines count the www.digg.com, not ignore them as they're doing now.
- aloser, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it redirects www.digg.com/* to http://digg.com/*
- el_taco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jdh24
Unfortunately the ads are what makes it a slow load for me. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm not an Apace geek (only a hobbyist) so I don't know what
" RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^digg.com
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://digg.com/$1 [R=301,L] "
does. Can someone explain? - dreamlayers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't see why they couldn't gzip only certain parts of the site. Like if it would break bigspy just don't compress that.
- mlipovsky, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4um. who cares.
- sachmanb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The only reason I temporarily stopped using Gzip on my website..... IE6 pretends to support it but drops the first portion of the files (losing css information usually from .css files). Need to modify my HttpModule to check if its IE6 and then ignore that it said it supports GZip
- Justin6512, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3all I have to say is, Kevin drives a golf
- Mr.Scientist, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7The real issue here is that Digg doesn't manage to keep domains like "pronetadvertising" off the homepage.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4i thought kevin rose once said in a podcast that there were 96 servers
- tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Maybe it's just that the digg is full of rubbish replies? Anyway, out of the 32 comments right now, I see 8 buried, and it's burying everything less than 0 for me.
- dreamlayers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1With Apache you can disable compression for some browsers only using an appropriate BrowserMatch directive.
- Tripw0l, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3this isn't the pants party?
- Citronjaune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article is lame... Nothing new, nothing interesting...
- Cytranic, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7What the ***** are you talking about?
- petdance, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Why does anyone care? This article makes it sound like Digg is performing some sort of grave disservice to humanity.
- Mr.Scientist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2It's called linkbait and it's a form of spam. Mr. ProNetAdvertising couldn't care less if Digg is efficient. The people who write these stories look for topics which are attractive to the target audience and then they write something, anything, about it. It doesn't have to be intelligent, in-depth or even true, as long as it's "interesting" to the target audience. The purpose is to get links and traffic. These people are professional search engine optimizers: They get paid to move webpages to the top of the search engine results.
- civperc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4agreed
- parkjins33, on 11/01/2007, -0/+0hey,
if you got passion on startup, visit www.micro-funding.com and raise many small funds from micro-investors...my two cents..http://www.micro-funding.com - iupetre, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Thanks for your input, Muhammed Saleem.
:) - Dayyve, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2If I was Kevin or Alex I would tell everyone to f*ck off. People should not be picking apart how 'efficient' they run their operation because it is _their_ operation.
Diggers get f*cking lives please! Really, this delving into stuff that has nothing to do with any of us is just presumptuous at best and then declaring how we would save beeelions and beeelions is just pretentious. - Mr.Scientist, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Oh great, even the Digg team feels they need to respond to articles by search engine optimizers. Grendelboogie, instead of posting here, maybe you should look for ways to keep Digg from being exploited by SEO-spammers.
- HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3I was tempted to edit out the positive points (which have little meaning) to focus on the number and magnitude of the negative points (whose impact we all feel). But I'd just look sleazy for doing so, and I think that list is pretty damning even unedited.
Oh, and thanks once again for cutting me off, edit timer. I would have in retrospect at least trimmed out the cheesy advice to clean the list up a little. - brianez21, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Sometimes you get these articles with every comment dugg down. Somebody named this "comment raping", and I wish some attention would be given to it rather than "ooh, let me digg you all down!" If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this digg page I submitted: http://digg.com/software/Perfect_example_of_Digg_Comment_Raping
- cybersamurai, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Digg has been getting a lot of criticism lately for being slow loading. They are probably aware of this as zipping the page file would increase load times as the viewing computer must do substantially more work in order to display it, regardless of the fact that the page downloads more quickly.
- jdh24, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Which part is way too slow? The entire site is slow most of the time. Digg should get some more advertizing and get some more servers.
- mehworld, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Faster internet will fix that? Why should Digg upgrade, when your running on dial-up expecting the world to load in a few seconds..
- HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1 * TOTAL_HTML - Congratulations, the total number of HTML files on this page (including the main HTML file) is 1 which most browsers can multithread. Minimizing HTTP requests is key for web site optimization.
* TOTAL_OBJECTS - Warning! The total number of objects on this page is 70 - consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your external objects. Replace graphic rollovers with CSS rollovers to speed display and minimize HTTP requests.
* TOTAL_IMAGES - Warning! The total number of images on this page is 58 , consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your graphics. Replace graphic rollovers with CSS rollovers to speed display and minimize HTTP requests.
* TOTAL_CSS - Caution. The total number of external CSS files on this page is 3 , consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your external CSS files. Ideally you should have one (or even embed CSS for high-traffic pages) on your pages.
* TOTAL_SIZE - Warning! The total size of this page is 224512 bytes, which will load in 58.74 seconds on a 56Kbps modem. Consider reducing total page size to less than 30K to achieve sub eight second response times on 56K connections. Pages over 100K exceed most attention thresholds at 56Kbps, even with feedback. Consider contacting us about our optimization services.
* TOTAL_SCRIPT - Warning! The total number of external script files on this page is 8 , consider reducing this to a more reasonable number. Combine, refine, and optimize your external script files. Ideally you should have one (or even embed scripts for high-traffic pages) on your pages.
* HTML_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of this HTML file is 3472 bytes, which less than 20K. Assuming that you specify the HEIGHT and WIDTH of your images, this size allows your page to display content in well under 8 seconds, the average time users are willing to wait for a page to display without feedback.
* IMAGES_SIZE - Warning! The total size of your images is 86491 bytes, which is over 30K. Consider optimizing your images for size, combining them, and replacing graphic rollovers with CSS.
* SCRIPT_SIZE - Warning! The total size of external your scripts is 103735 bytes, which is over 8K. Consider optimizing your scripts for size, combining them, and using compression where appropriate for any scripts placed in the HEAD of your documents.
* CSS_SIZE - Warning! The total size of your external CSS is 30814 bytes, which is over 8K. Consider optimizing your CSS for size by eliminating whitespace, using shorthand notation, and combining multiple CSS files where appropriate.
* MULTIM_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of all your external multimedia files is 0 bytes, which is less than 4K. - Tripw0l, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1Don't really care if it's "efficient" for dial-up users, I have high-speed and this site comes in fast every time.
I'll never scrutinize Kevin his work with Digg, it's a fantastic idea, it's been fine tuned and people even try to copy the idea.
You know you have a good thing when people try to replicate it.
I like Digg just the way it is. - mychaleg, on 10/12/2007, -25/+9uh-oh, Digg's infrastructure isn't efficient. i better save up, my Digg subscription bill is gonna be HUGE!
- emehrkay, on 10/12/2007, -20/+2fuk. i just hope my oj check comes in soon
- HP844182, on 10/12/2007, -21/+3I dugg you up just to see if you can last another millisecond before you're dugg into oblivion.
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