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Search function disabled (Read 60463 times)
NightOwl
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #15 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 1:23am
 
Rad

Hmmm...just thought things through a little bit more--I guess if the *Search* function was off all together--then the *Search Engines* couldn't be doing any searching either--but they were still here the whole time--so I guess it doesn't make any sense to try and restrict them--they appear *not* to be using the *Search* function--actually!
 

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MrMagoo
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #16 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 12:20pm
 
Ya, but the fact remains that there are still more search engines using the forum than guests, so I'm sure they are having an impact.  Limiting them might be a good experiment to help us understand the resource usage.  Granted, it solves nothing in the end, since Rad has said he would rather move the site then limit the search engines for any extended period.
 
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Rad
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #17 - Feb 15th, 2008 at 11:19pm
 
There are usually more guests than SE's. Only rarely do # of SE's exceed guests. During normal business hours, # of guests seems highest.

Right now (Friday 9:30 PM) there are 33 guests. 9 SEs.

The most defining result would be > our usage drops to acceptable (for Shared) if we bar SE's. But I would still move the site .. than leave SE's banned.

That would be a nice data-point to have. But I don't want to exclude SE's and then have them mark our forums as "off-limits" .. not knowing when/if they'd return.

Just noticed this eve that Yahoo has scaled way back. They are usually here like rabbits. I'll ask LP for a usage number for today .. to see if (naturally) reduced SE's here are having a noticeable effect (even *with* the Search function re-enabled).
 
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NightOwl
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #18 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 12:50am
 
Rad

Tonight at approx. 10:45 pm--Yahoo SE's are gone--and only 13 total SE's visiting the forum (I've been amazed--Google has just one--Yahoo has been up to 25-30 and Microsoft up to 15-20--how can Google use just one and the other guys have to use so many?!--how's your server usage now?!
 

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Rad
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #19 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 1:38am
 
It's 11:30 PM. I see 4 Yahoo Crawlers. Sent Lunarpages a query for server stats 2 hours ago. Still haven't heard back.
 
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Rad
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #20 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 2:54am
 
Quote:
CPU usage: 2.25
Memory usage: 1.63
MySQL usage: 0.0
 
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Rad
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #21 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 9:03am
 
7am saturday. no yahoo crawlers. that's a first.
 
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John.
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #22 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 10:01am
 
As I understand it from reading this thread, YABB structure is a large flat file, not a hierarchical or  indexed database.  So when a guest (or user) searches for an item, and selects "all posts", the search function must read ALL threads (the entire history of Rad forum) until it satisfies the 10 results or until it reaches the beginning of time date/thread (about 35,000 posts).  That's a lot of i/o and memory and cpu, not even counting how lengthy each post might be.

That's not a problem if you spell your search term correctly, but if you don't or you have a couple AND operatives, you easily cause yabb to read through everything.

Is this possibly a contributing factor?
 

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NightOwl
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #23 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 10:06am
 
Ghost4me

I'm sure it is...but completely disabling the Search function only helped, but did not resolve the usage problems--so there must be something else going on--as well!
 

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John.
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #24 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 10:17am
 
NightOwl wrote on Feb 16th, 2008 at 10:06am:
I'm sure it is...but completely disabling the Search function only helped, but did not resolve the usage problems--so there must be something else going on--as well!

Other than relying on LP to provide their summary statistics, it will probably take some kind of internal YABB trace or YABB internal statistics to determine what is going on.  Maybe some YABB support or expert can help.  I doubt that this board is the first or only one to question how resources are being consumed.

Interesting problem; sorry I don't have any solutions, just theories.  I looked this morning and there were 35 guests, so I just assumed they were all searching and reading, since they obviously weren't posting.
 

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Rad
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #25 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 11:34am
 
Then there's the possibility that they are feeding me padded numbers .. since money is at stake. (Higher resource usage leads to pricier hosting plans.)

Note that I don't have access to their reporting module. I only get what they give me. So the process is far from transparent and not without incentive for them to inflate the numbers.

It also raised my eyebrows when one of their tech sppt ppl started offering me pricing deals, telling me what it would cost to go different paths .. when I had already had these discussions with their Sales people .. and the sppt guy was giving me way-costlier numbers than I got from the Sales people.

And they've given me some strange results .. such as one report claiming PHP was one of my top processes. When I questioned it, they later claimed the report was inaccurate. (Guess so, since I don't use PHP.)

.. and another claiming the *.ico (tiny icon graphic) was also a top process. I twice asked them about that, but they still have never responded to my queries.. made like they never heard my question.

Just last night they sent me a report with another site's domain name ( bernos.org ) .. only to say later that the stats were accurate, but the domain name was not.

So the process has been less-than-perfect, .. and note that we received no usage complaints back in June .. when we had record traffic here at the forums (nearly 300).

When I recently began to discuss the process to upgrade to a VPS acct, LP told me our usage exceeds their guidelines for VPS, and that I needed a dedicated server. So something about this fails the smell test.
 
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John.
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #26 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 12:11pm
 
Well, lots of "facts" being thrown out there.  As you correctly said, "Who to believe?".  It may not have anything to do at all with search and can easily be some other completely unrelated problem--even a problem on the SERVER end , or how user clients are handled, and nothing to do with the rad forum.  Or some quirky yabb setting.

It's easier to tell a customer "just get a faster pc" or "just upgrade to xyz..." than to delve into the real problem.

Be vigilant.  Trust no one.   Smiley

 

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Rad
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #27 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 1:40pm
 
Yahoo! crawlers are back (noon). I see 27 .. out of 44 total SE's.
 
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Rad
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #28 - Feb 16th, 2008 at 4:25pm
 
Here's another oddity:

Quote:
---- TECH RESPONSE STARTS HERE ----

Dear Customer,

Since the stats numbers are averages for the day, it is better to wait 24 hours in order to see if the changes reduced the load. Please reply to this ticket in 24hrs so we can check your account usage.

If you have any questions we will gladly assist you. Thank you for the cooperation.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us.

It's like they don't want you to have too much information. Weird, huh? Certainly more data points can't *hurt*. (Or can they?)
 
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John.
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Re: Search function disabled
Reply #29 - Feb 17th, 2008 at 8:47am
 
Is it possible we are blaming search engines where the problem is somewhere else?

Very quiet this morning and yet I saw 5 second delay just getting from Home to Ghost 10 board; of course yabb that would have to display the 20 thread titles, but that's all.  There are few users/guests and even fewer search engines using forum:

Members: 3
Amish., Rad.Test, NightOwl
Guests: 21
Search Engines: 10
Yahoo! Crawler (1), Microsoft Live Search (9)
 

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