Social media and news sites can direct a lot of traffic at a website over a short period of time. It’s not uncommon for servers to crash under the weight of these increases, especially on shared servers like Dreamhost.

Q. Can a website hosted by Dreamhost handle getting slashdotted, dugg, or handle large traffic spikes?

A. Maybe. A static website (no databases) should hold up against quite a bit of traffic, but a database driven site would have more problems. If you’re using WordPress, the Wp-Cache plugin is a must. DreamHost include with WordPress one click installs.

Q. What can I do if I get a huge traffic spike or am expecting one?

A. The best thing to do is send DreamHost support a ticket giving them a head’s up about the traffic increase, so support will be able to monitor your server.

It might also be a good time to consider upgrading to a DreamHost Private Server, where you can scale your RAM/CPU allowance on the fly.

You may also want to check out the advice here for optimizing your websites to improve performance and use less server resources.

From my own personal experience: a Wordpress blog of mine hosted by Dreamhost recieved had a traffic spike of 3000 visitors within just a few hours…and I didn’t notice a slowdown in my site. Friends of mine have recieved about 5000 visitors in a day without issues. I’ve yet to get a truely huge traffic spike with a site hosted at DreamHost, but will post results here when I do.

Further Reading:

Dreamhost Forum - Thread about Dreamhost and the Digg Effect

Dreamhost Wiki - DH’s Guide to Dealing with Increased Web Traffic