CPU Usage - Potential Customer

[Huxley]

Recently my website was locked and moved to an axillary server by my hosting provider for resource "abuse" violations (CPU load). I was (am) running a Joomla CMS that recently saw a large increase in traffic and subsequently placed a large strain on my shared box. Obviously I understand the need to prevent one customer from monopolizing the resources of a shared server, but I'm not quite sold on the idea that 5k unique visitors a day being served only text and some images (no forums, interactive content, etc) is that huge of an issue (rest assured my violation email included a link to purchase a better package).

Now I will acknowledge that Joomla has some bloat insofar as the modules and other goodies, but my experience is that most turn-key CMS solutions share this similar issue. I am in the process of migrating all of our work and articles to a blog-based CMS simply because it serves our purposes better (strategy guides for a video game requiring simple comments from authorized users) but I fear I might run into the same issue no matter what host I choose.

The problem I have is that even though a dedicated package is ideal, I can't afford it currently until I establish some form of a revenue stream from a shared solution. The chicken before the egg problem. I am looking for a candid assesment on the potential issues that may arise from installing a WP blog and having information served to 5k+ visitor's a day. I want to change hosting companies because my current one has poor customer service and high downtime. My site just started getting popular with our community (from 400 unique to thousands in one day) and obviously I can't afford to have a 404 page show up for my visitors during such a fledgling period. Also, what really cheesed me off about my current provider is that that suspended my site BEFORE they sent me the violation and only did that after I called support!

Any advice before I make the leap to HG? Don't want to have my site shut down again. Is dedicated my only option?

Thank you for your time.

[GvilleRick]

It is very likely that if a site causes problems on one shared host with CPU load, etc. it is likely to have similar problems with any shared host. Unfortunately popularity of a site can cause it to outgrow shared hosting and the only option is to move to VPS (which HG does not offer) or dedicated.

As for the handling of your account with the other host, the process they followed is not that different than what I have seen with HG and other shared hosts. I worked for another company for a while and we would suspend any site causing problems and then contact the owner. It is not possible in a shared hosting environment to allow a site to bring down the server while you are trying to contact the owner of the site. If someone else's site on the server was causing problems you would expect the company to fix it quickly. They should have contacted you when the site was suspended and not waited until you contacted them.

You could try switching to HG and it may work out fine for you at least for a while. Eventually you will probably need to move to a dedicated server so it would be important to begin developing a means to generate income.

[Huxley]

Thank you for the quick response. I will probably streamline the site, switch to HG and then see how it goes from there.