It looks like the Internet Marketing Monitor isn't the only website to suffer from performance issues lately.  Internet Retailer looked at several of the biggest online retailers to see how they were handling the stress of this year's record-setting holiday traffic.  And while the Internet Marketing Monitor has a minuscule fraction of the traffic that these huge sites have, the effects of inadequate hardware were the same.

We had to shut down for three days and find a new hosting provider (which turned out to be a nightmare).  As Internet Retailer points out, Overstock.com and Walmart.com both had severe enough issues due to traffic that they eventually became inaccessible for periods of time.  In addition, Amazon.com and Macys.com both experienced drastic reductions in performance as shoppers poured onto the internet in the days following Thanksgiving.

Several weeks ago I mentioned a report on MarketingVOX about an Advertising.com survey that indicated traffic this year would reach record numbers.  And while the exact amount of traffic a website can expect to receive can never be pinpointed with any real accuracy, it's good to keep these examples in mind all year long.  This is especially true when running a promotion or other traffic-driving initiative.

But it's also a good idea to remember that problems like those experienced by Overstock.com, Walmart.com, Amazon.com, and Macys.com aren't always avoidable.  Those companies invest huge sums of money into hardware and software designed to keep their sites running even with millions of visitors.  As they found out recently, that's not always enough.

But there are ways to help reduce website performance issues.

Keep your site and the elements that make it up as simple as possible.  Graphics, animations, and flashy elements might look pretty… but they're resource hogs.  It's also a good idea to know your hosting provider's policy on traffic spikes.  Do they shut you off if you go over?  Do they have systems in place to regulate overflow traffic?  And if possible, a backup plan is always nice to have.  Backup servers are even better, but not every company is equipped to pull that off.

Whatever the size of your company and website, preparing for and anticipating service problems should help minimize the impact on your business when they occur.  And don't worry… they will occur.  It's not really a matter of "if".

It's just a matter of how you're going to handle them when they do happen.