Shared plans cap processing power, memory and simultaneous visitors even when space and traffic are unlimited. Ask your host for the real limits, watch the usage page, cache what you can and move up before a known busy date.

Unlimited, until it is not

The hosting plan says unlimited space and unlimited traffic. Then a newspaper mentions the business, or a sale email goes out, and the site slows to a crawl or shows an error page.

An email from the host arrives about excessive resource usage. Sometimes the account has been suspended until someone calls.

Nothing on the plan's sales page explained this, because the limits that matter were never the ones being advertised.

The limits that are not on the sales page

The third is the one a busy week hits. Each visit to a page built by the site's code holds a process briefly, and when too many arrive together, the rest get an error.

Why shared accounts have caps

A shared server holds hundreds of accounts. The caps stop one busy or broken site from slowing every other site on the machine, which is fair to everyone, including you on a quiet day.

Unlimited usually refers to disk space and data transfer, and the terms of service add a fair use clause. Processing power is the resource actually shared, and it is the one rationed.

Disk space is rarely the limit that bites during a busy week.

What hitting a limit looks like

Pages load slowly, then not at all. Visitors see an error mentioning a resource limit or a service that is unavailable. The dashboard crawls, and orders or bookings fail halfway through.

Often it lasts minutes and clears by itself, so nobody at the business sees it. The control panel's records may be the only evidence.

If it keeps happening, or affects other accounts, the host may suspend the site until the cause is fixed.

Busy weeks that are not customers

Not every spike is good news. Automated programs guessing at login pages, aggressive crawlers and spam bots all use the same processes as real visitors.

So can the site itself: a backup plugin running at noon, or a scheduled task that misbehaves after an update. Check what was busy before paying for more.

A worked example

A fishing lodge on the coast opens bookings for the next season on one morning each fall, and emails its returning guests the evening before.

Its site runs on a shared plan with a booking calendar plugin. Every view of the calendar is built fresh from the database, because availability changes by the minute.

On opening morning last fall, several hundred guests tried to load the calendar in the first hour. The account's limit on simultaneous processes filled almost at once, and most of them saw an error page.

Some phoned, and the lodge's two lines were busy all morning. The lodge assumed the site had crashed.

The resource usage page in its control panel told a different story: the account had simply hit its cap, again and again, for hours.

The lodge had paid for unlimited bandwidth for years and never used a fraction of it. The limit it hit was one it had never heard of.

For this fall, the site moves to a plan with dedicated resources for the booking season. Every page except the calendar is cached, and the email goes out in three batches, an hour apart.

Reading your own limits

Ask the host for the plan's actual limits on processing, memory and simultaneous processes, and what happens when they are reached: slowing, errors or suspension.

Many control panels have a resource usage page showing how often the account hit each limit. Look at it monthly, and the day after anything unusually busy.

A handful of brief hits a month is normal. Daily hits on an ordinary week mean the site is already near the edge.

Making each visit cheaper

Page caching saves a finished copy of each page and serves that copy, instead of building the page from the database for every visitor. On most small sites it is the biggest single change.

Some pages cannot be cached, such as the cart, the checkout and live availability, so make the rest as light as possible to leave room for those.

Block repeated login attempts, run backups at night, and remove plugins nobody uses.

Spreading the crowd

Some busy moments are yours to schedule. A newsletter sent to the whole list at once sends many people to the site within minutes; sending it in batches an hour apart spreads them out.

Tell your host before a promotion or a known rush. Some can raise limits for a few days, and any good host would rather hear in advance than find out from an alarm.

Moving up before it matters

The options are a larger shared plan with higher caps, a virtual private server with resources reserved for you, or managed hosting where someone else watches the server.

A server of your own needs looking after: updates, security and monitoring. That is work for your host or your web professional, not a job to learn during a busy week.

Move weeks before a known peak, not during it. A move needs testing, and the busy week is the worst time to discover a missed setting.

Many hosts let a plan be raised for the busy months and lowered afterwards, which suits a seasonal business.

The counter-case

Plenty of sites never come near their limits.

A brochure site with steady, modest traffic and page caching can absorb a sudden mention without strain. Upgrading by reflex, without checking the usage records, can mean paying more for a problem the site does not have.

Check the records first. If they show the limits being hit, or a busy date is coming, move up before it arrives.

Before the next busy week

  1. Ask your host for the plan's real limits.
  2. Find the resource usage page in your control panel.
  3. Check it after every unusually busy day.
  4. Turn on page caching for every page that allows it.
  5. Block repeated login attempts and move backups to night.
  6. List the busy dates you can see coming.
  7. Move up weeks ahead of the first one.

Step two is the one that replaces guessing with evidence. Without the usage record, a slow week looks like bad luck; with it, you can see exactly which limit was hit and when.

Checking what your plan already includes is covered in free certificates your host may already offer.

Frequently asked questions

If my plan is unlimited, why did the site stop?

Unlimited usually means disk space and data transfer. Processing time, memory and simultaneous processes are still capped, and a busy hour can fill those caps quickly.

What happens when the limit is reached?

Pages slow down or show an error about a resource limit, forms and checkouts can fail partway, and repeated problems can lead the host to suspend the account.

Can bots cause the same problem?

Yes. Automated login guessing, aggressive crawlers and spam bots use the same processes as customers, and so can backups or scheduled tasks running at busy times.

How do I see whether limits were hit?

Many control panels have a resource usage page showing how often each limit was reached. Check it monthly and after any unusually busy day.

Does page caching really make a difference?

Usually more than anything else. A cached page is served as a ready copy instead of being built for each visitor, leaving room for pages that cannot be cached.

When should I move to a bigger plan?

Weeks before a known busy period, not during it, and only after the usage records show the limits are a real problem rather than a guess.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Busy season coming on shared hosting?

Send us your plan details. We will read the usage records and tell you whether the site will cope.

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