Late Sunday night I published an article about work in America. More specifically, how the 40-hour workweek harms productivity, the environment, and psychological health. The next day, I woke up to find over 50 people on my website. And then something crazy happened.
After my article was published, it was shared on the social networking site Reddit. Currently, it’s the 53rd most visited site on the net. The users of Reddit tend to be more tech savvy and interested in social issues (but isn’t limited to these areas). My article struck a chord with people that support the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and workers’ rights.
I decided to go over to Starbucks yesterday to complete some academic research, as my site was beginning to launch into a mad frenzy of traffic. In my typical frugal fashion, I had a reward and even got another free refill before I left! I was buzzed by the caffeine, but even more because of the analytics. Hell, I couldn’t concentrate on the research writing because the numbers started to grow.
Suddenly, it hit the hundreds. OWS supporters shared it on Facebook and the niche social site, Hacker News. I texted a couple friends and let my mom know what was happening. Mom hopped on the site, and I could see her individual visit. That’s the last time I could see a person’s click.
I began to tweet out progressively higher traffic statistics, which came from free Google Analytics. When I hit 200, I looked back at Reddit. A big-time user and moderator of one of the largest “subreddits” had shared my article on no less than three other boards. The über popular “Futurology” subreddit generally has thousands of visitors at any one moment. That’s when I could tell it was all about to rollover into the most popular article I’ve ever written.
From there, the article rocketed to the top of five major boards and was shared on Facebook nearly 2000 times. I kept watching the traffic — still ticking higher. It was like gambling or playing a videogame, except I couldn’t lose. The real-time traffic statistics constantly updated every second, and the visitors didn’t stop.
Every time I thought I had hit the max number of visitors at one time, it went up even further. I thought it would all stop before 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, and 1,000. But it didn’t. The highest recorded real-time, active visitors clocked in at 1,212 (see the screenshot above), with my web server straining to handle one more person.
I struggled to get to sleep because the traffic was still in the 900s by Monday night. When I finally began to drift, I assumed that the number would be back to more reasonable levels in the morning. I thought, “Maybe it’ll be around 100 or so?”
Surprise surprise, that wasn’t the case. When I woke up around 9 AM, the site was still reaching about 900 people — 150-200 visitors per minute. The stress on my server hadn’t ceased and my site was still inaccessible for much of the morning.
I was shocked by the total amount of traffic that was driven to my site over two days. Despite being a nerd through much of my life, I had no real appreciation for the level of traffic available on the Internet. After two days, my site has received about 200,000 visitors (probably more than that, due to tracking and server issues). That’s roughly three times the population size of my adopted home, Iowa City.
I was lucky to be able to share this experience with Twitter followers, friends, and family. As a writer, it put a serious smile on my face that people cared that much to read and share my work. I’m deeply honored and humbled by the magnitude of support. Thanks for your support by sharing the article and reading all about it!
Liquid says
Great job, Sam 🙂 I hope a good portion of those new readers will come back and become regular visitors. Your site certainly deserves more attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if you also got tons of emails in your inbox haha. As someone who has over $530,000 of debt, I enjoy reading your take on how to manage debt and money 😀 Keep up the good content.
Sam Lustgarten says
Thank you for your incredibly thoughtful and encouraging comment!
It was such a rush, and I hope that it only continues to go up from here.
Means a lot to hear that you’ve been reading my work.
All the best,
Sam
Catherine says
That’s amazing! Congrats 🙂
Roadmap2Retire says
Congrats on the massive amount of traffic! Enjoy the ride and hope some of the visitors will come back for more stories.
cheers
R2R
Sam Lustgarten says
Me too! That’s always the big question with social media websites: will the visitors stay for more?! Likely, the vast majority will move on to the next big story. But even getting a few followers from 200,000 means a great deal to me. 🙂
Syed says
Great job Sam. Reddit is definitely a good place to get noticed. Congrats on the continued success.
patrickproulx83 says
I started a following a week before you made it real big!! I feel kindaa hipster 😛
Congrats! That’s amazing. I loved that article by the way!
Sam Lustgarten says
Look at you, Patrick! Heck yes you are a hip reader. Haha. Thanks for the encouragement! That definitely keeps me motivated to write more.
Nicola says
That’s awesome! 🙂
Dear Dividend says
Congratulations!
Regards,
Dear Dividend
Will - First Quarter Finance says
Congrats, Sam! That’s insane! I think I may have commented on that post because my traffic has spiked as well!
Sam Lustgarten says
Will,
That’s very likely the case! Visitors were clicking all over the place. 🙂 Glad it even trickled down to your site. Enjoy the traffic!
Sam
kathleen says
LOVE this! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Sam Lustgarten says
You’re welcome! Thanks for reading! 🙂
Mrs. Frugalwoods says
Congrats! That’s awesome!
debtgal says
That’s fantastic – congratulations!!
J. Money says
That’s incredible man. See what happens when you focus on good quality content?? Good lesson for us other bloggers out there 🙂
Sam Lustgarten says
J,
You’re absolutely right. It doesn’t much matter the length of a story. What makes all the difference is the content quality and need in the community. If you can meet those two demands, you’ve got a hit!
Thanks for the support,
Sam
Broke Millennial says
How amazing! Well deserved viral post.
journeytosaving says
Congrats! I can’t imagine how exhilarating it must have been to watch those numbers. It was a very interesting post, and it’s not hard to see why it went viral considering it’s also easy to relate to and have an opinion on. Hopefully this brings more eyes to your site on a continuing basis!
Alexis says
Congrats! That is so awesome. I wish I could see numbers like that, maybe one day! =)
Michelle says
Wow that is awesome! Good job!
kat says
I just assumed you always got that much traffic! Love your site! 🙂
thebrokeandbeautifullife says
That’s SO amazing. Thanks for sharing!
Kipp says
Congrats on the traffic! I just found your site after Cashville Skyline tweeted about your success, now I need to read that article that caused the chaos.
Sam Lustgarten says
Kipp,
Welcome to the site! Thanks for visiting.
Sam
Alicia @ Financial Diffraction says
That is absolutely massive. I think my site would roll over and die with that much traffic 🙂 Congratulations on the major success
Sam Lustgarten says
Alicia,
Thanks for your kind words.
It was a massive surge to the web servers, but they somehow made it through the event relatively unscathed. When it got over 800+ visitors, the site began to fail… But if people clicked again or reloaded, it usually came back. I was lucky that my server made it! 🙂
Sam
thephroogaljason says
Congrats! I did enjoy that post too and glad it sent you traffic! Cheers.
femmefrugality says
That’s so awesome! Congrats! Reddit is still kind of mysterious to me, though I do know how powerful it can be.
Edwin @ Cash Syndrome says
That’s amazing. Congratulations. You should be feeling the effects of that avalanche of traffic for quite a while.
MomCents says
That’s excellent! I got a couple things out of this — neither of which was an intentional point on your part (maybe it was) — but nevertheless here it is:
1. Traffic spikes comes from skill and quality content first and foremost..but there is an element of luck
2. Be ready for the surge….
Since I’m just returning to blogging, my focus right now is getting content up. I’m not worried about monetization or even collecting subscribers. But that could be a mistake. What if I happen to write something that strikes a chord with a mega community. That traffic will come and go…some may return, but I haven’t set up a way to really keep them.
Makes me think I should set something up sooner rather than later.
Congrats on your well deserved traffic spike!
(2 DOG LOVER) says
Soo happy to see such good responses. Finally I understand after visiting your website how valuable your data is. Shame on me for waiting so long! Keep up the great work!
Talal says
Lucky you.
thefirestartercouk says
Wowza! I think the biggest day for my blog so far was 599 page views… hah! 🙂
What host and hosting package do you use by the way? I am pretty sure my hosting package could not handle that sort of traffic!
Have you ever read “The Black Swan” by Nicolas Naseem Taleb? It definitely sounds like this was a Black Swan (unexpected event, with huge and nearly limitless consequences compared to the input, i.e. one blog post.) of the good variety for you. Congrats!
Sam Lustgarten says
My hosting package changed shortly before this event, thankfully. I’m a user of BigScoots.com and would highly recommend you look into using them. They’re inexpensive, reliable, and have fantastic service.
I’ve never read “The Black Swan,” but it sounds like a perfect winter break read! Thanks for the suggestion and wonderful comment.
-Sam