Which Hosts Use CPU Throttling?

I know there is more talk about CPU throttling lately and many hosts have taken up this method of getting more accounts on their servers. CPU throttling is fairly new with some hosts, but I would guess it will become more common.

If you read most blogs and forums about CPU throttling most of what is said is in fact negative. Obviously if you have a site and are getting a spurt of high traffic, you don’t want your site slowed.

I mention it here because I am not a computer guru so I probably don’t have the whole picture. I actually don’t mind that much that my site is slowed, even though I do have a site that gets a good amount of traffic and it does get throttled back quite frequently.

I compare it to someone turning the water valve back so you don’t get as much water/bandwidth if the server is busy. If you need full speed on your site at all times, then they do have dedicated servers, but you will pay a few times more for this service. A personal site like this doesn’t need that much bandwidth, so the inexpensive shared hosting is fine.

I do think it might be wise to put up a maintenance page while working on your site so that people don’t use enough bandwidth to slow your site because if what I hear is correct, these slowdowns can cause errors when you are editing.

I am the type of person that is probably a hosts worst nightmare. I know just enough to generally get a site up, but not nearly enough knowledge to get the bugs out of my files. This can cause a site built by an amateur to use much more bandwidth than a site that size should actually use.

WordPress is known to be a fairly greedy type of blogging system. My advice, and I learned this the hard way, is to keep plugins to a minimum when using this, or actually any other blogging platform.

If you want proof, try using some plugins, then deactivate them. Some are worse than others but I find that they all use some bandwidth. I try to use the minimum amount for what I am doing. Some cause a very obvious delay, some will hardly be noticed.

I consider it a sacrifice because I do like the frills of some of the plugins. In some cases they enhance the quality enough so that the site might actually make money, or more money at least. In a case like that, then do yourself and the server a favor and get dedicated hosting, or at least a larger hosting package.

I think we all see the value to a host when they use CPU throttling as it allows them to put more accounts on their servers. For a personal site, it probably won’t bother anything to any large degree.

The thing that I don’t like about it is that I believe in “truth in advertising”. This means that if a hosting company is advertising unlimited bandwidth, it is only logical to expect this to be delivered. Therefore, if your site is throttled, it does not get “unlimited” bandwidth. It might be small potatoes to some people, but I false advertising is just that, false advertising.

You will find this out if you have a site that dramatically increases in the amount of traffic it gets and your site either gets shut down, or you receive notification that the host is either canceling your account, or raising the price.

If you are running a WordPress blog, you should at the very least check for errors in your databases and things of this nature. Many hosts will have this information in their support files or in their forums.

For the amateur like myself, the best advice I can give is to keep plugins to a minimum, keep your blog up to date, try to watch for plugins that seem to have a dramatic affect on the speed of your site.

Most small personal sites won’t go over the limit, but a few blogs that become successful will, and just be aware that if your site does have a dramatic increase in traffic, that the CPU throttling will hurt in that people won’t be able to load your site, or just won’t wait. If CPU throttling increases dramatically, you will need to upgrade your hosting service, or one would guess that it will stop growing.

It might actually be wise to avoid hosts that claim “unlimited” bandwidth if they use CPU throttling, because if they use it, it just isn’t unlimited.

Tags: advertising, unlimited bandwidth, Which Hosts Use CPU Throttling