How To Get Your Blog Shut Down in 3 Easy Steps

Have you ever visited a blog or other site expecting to find content, but instead are confronted with an error page of some sort?  Isn't that cool?  The first thought that runs through your head is “Wow, this must be a really popular site if they crashed their server” — c'mon, you know it is.

If you have your own site, I'll bet you've also thought to yourself “I wish I could do that so other people will think I'm cool too.”  LOOK NO FURTHER!  I'll let you in on the secret of how to accomplish the appearance of a crashed site.  All you need are three things:

  1. An super-great web host (like HostGator)
  2. A database taxing stats plugin (like FireStats)
  3. A spike of traffic

Allow me to elaborate.

The foundation for getting your blog shut down lies with your web host.  You need to find a host that will shut you down first, and ask questions later.  This is important, so don't brush it off.  Do your research on web hosts and make sure you find compelling evidence that they will respond to database traffic poorly.  It's also a good idea to buy their cheapest hosting plan so they see you as an insignificant customer.

Now that the foundation is down, it's time to build the house.  You'll want to install a statistics package on your server that taxes your database every time somebody visits the site.  If you really want to go nuts, make sure you display some of those stats on every page of your blog (like in a sidebar).  This way the stats package will be writing to and reading from the database with each visit — and we all know databases hate being bothered.

Now for the final step — set fire to the house.  Write a good article (something like Indoor Macro Photography Project for Rainy Days) and let it get Dugg or Stumbled.  If it's good enough, your site will receive a ton of traffic in a short amount of time.  This is the key to the whole process, so spend the extra time getting it right.

When you get that rush of traffic, your stats package will go nuts on the database.  When the database goes bonkers, your host admin will freak out and shut you down right after you go to bed.  Then they'll send you an email stating that your database was shut down.  If you're lucky, and you've chosen your host properly, they will take a really long time to fix things.

So that's it.  Three simple steps to getting your blog shut down.  Pull this off, and your popularity factor will go through the roof.  If you manage to accomplish this feat of coolness, make sure you contact me so I too can bask in the glory of your disabled site and pay my respects to a webmaster so deserving of such an achievement.

This post is dedicated to HostGator for all you've done to for me.  Thank you for taking so long to fix the problems you've caused using your ready-fire-aim approach to site administration.  And thank you for not helping me over the phone — it's almost like you knew I prefer to sit and wait anxiously for those online support tickets to go through.