April 7th, 2010
The Day I Broke The Internets
What happened yesterday sent me on such an emotional roller coaster, it may take me a week to recover. My nerves are still raw. My emotions are still running high. But I know many people are wondering what the hell happened so I’ve gotta spill the details.
Yesterday I wrote a post that went so viral that my hosting provider couldn’t handle the traffic I got, and terminated my service, without any warning whatsoever. The post was up for 8 hours, and in that time it pulled in 10,000 page views, 865 people shared it on Facebook, there were 150 comments left, and it was reposted all over Baby Center, The Bump, iVillage, and dozens of other message boards and websites. I have no idea what I said to even get that kind of response.
Of course, someone like Dooce gets that kind of traffic every hour that her blog is up, so the I cannot understand how my obviously-worthless hosting company couldn’t handle my little surge.
I just purchased 3 years in advance from this hosting provider, thinking I’d make the investment and not have to worry about this again until Jonas was in grade school. But instead, on the one day I need good service, I get shut down instead. Here is the email that I find 3 hours after the ordeal started:
Hi Gina,
As you probably aware, here at Just Host we proactively monitor all our servers to ensure that our clients websites are loading as fast as possible at all times. During this outine monitoring we have found that your account is utilizing an excessive amount of system resources, and we have been forced to suspend your site as per our terms and conditions ’10% CPU/Memory Policy’ For your reference, here is a copy of your usage report:
Top Process %CPU 153 /usr/bin/php /home/aheadma1/public_html/thefeministbreeder.com/index.php
Top Process %CPU 117 /usr/bin/php /home/aheadma1/public_html/thefeministbreeder.com/index.php
Top Process %CPU 116 /usr/bin/php /home/aheadma1/public_html/thefeministbreeder.com/index.phpJust Host offer unlimited hosting space and unlimited bandwidth, but as per our terms we will suspend any website which exceeds our 10% CPU/Memory policy. We hope that you understand our position in ensuring that we provide the best possible service. In order to continue to provide this high quality service, you will need to upgrade to a dedicated server, which will give you an abundance of additional resources and speed up your website. As a loyal Just Host customer we have arranged for you to receive a special deal on a dedicated server with SingleHop, (our trusted dedicated partner) who will assist you with everything you need to make your switch a smooth transaction.
Please visit this link to upgrade to a dedicated server: http://www.justhost.com/godedicated
Sorry for any inconvenience, and we hope you understand our decision. Once you have made the switch to dedicated, feel free to contact us at billing@justhost.com for a refund of your current Just Host account. On behalf of everyone here at Just Host, we wish you all the best with your online ventures.Thank you.
__
Kind regards,
Oliver Leach,
Just Host
www.justhost.com
That’s it. No recourse except to buy a dedicated server. No offer to purchase more bandwidth. No offer to keep my site up until I can get my files off. JustHost – you are slimy assholes.
No, this is not the kind of thing a hosting provider usually does, unless you’ve apparently signed up with World’s Biggest Criminals Hosting Provider, a.k.a. JustHost, for your service. I tried calling them – no phone number could be reached. I tried doing their live support chat – but that guy told me my account had been suspended and there was nothing they could do, then he hung up on me! The nerve! According to the link they gave me, my only option for retrieving my files was to immediately purchase a $150 dedicated server. Nothing else. They were essentially holding my site for ransom.
Meanwhile, visitors are pouring into my broken site at 2 every second, and then the panicked messages start coming to me, and then I’m even more panicked, and the whole thing starts to become a massive panic attack.
(now, I realize this could sound totally childish to some people – It’s not like I got sent to war, or lost a child, or something that traumatic. But please, understand that in this moment, this was one of the most frightening, out-of-control things that I’ve ever been through.)
This company is holding my files hostage. I’ve been robbed. 5 years of writing. 5 years of pictures. Thousands of comments from readers. My whole hub has been taken from me and I can’t do anything about it. I didn’t even have EMAIL anymore because that was tied to my hosting. Everyone’s freaking out around me. I’m shaking, my chest closes up, and I’m bawling all over my keyboard. I can’t do anything but just cry.
Then, my community kicks into crisis mode, and what happens next is most generosity I’ve ever experienced in my life. I don’t even know how to describe it. It was astonishing. It just breaks my heart. I will never be able to thank all the people who came to my aid last night.
Immediately someone suggests I set up a PayPal account to accept donations. You’d have to know me, but I never, ever take anything from anybody, especially money. I was raised to never accept help (which is kind of a stupid and ultimately selfish thing at times, but hey, that’s the way they raised me.) But I’m desperate, and I don’t know what else to do. I try setting up a PayPal account but I have no email address so I can’t. I couldn’t even focus long enough to think about setting up a Gmail account to setup a Paypal account, so one of my new cyber friends, Kathy Fitz-Lopez (@milkstained) swoops in and sets up a donation button for me.
This is the unreal part. Within 18 minute – 18 minutes – she brought in the $150 ransom fee. More donations came after, even when people knew we reached our goal, and we got up to $190 (last I checked).
Also, friends on Facebook and Twitter are writing angry letters to JustHost telling them to give me my service back. Friends are trying to get them on chat because Support wouldn’t talk to me anymore, and people all over Twitter telling JustHost where to stick it.
While that was happening, StarryMom (my unbelievably talented and resourceful webmistress) managed to ninja her way onto the phone with someone at JustHost, and got them to unlock my account long enough to get my files off. I immediately got on the phone with GoDaddy (who I buy all my domains from) and had them set me up with an account big enough to handle all the traffic. Sarah (StarryMom) stayed up all night transferring the files to my new servers and sorting everything out. At 4 am, I finally saw TheFeministBreeder.com homepage again. And then, I cried some more.
And after all that – I couldn’t help but think…
All I can do is try to chuckle about it now. I’m still spent, but thankfully my support team mitigated the damage as much as humanly possible, and I can publish this post today thanks to all their dedication to my silly little website.
I cannot express the gratitude I feel for having people around me who would donate their time and money into helping me – a relative stranger. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to deserve that kind of help and support, but I only hope that I can deserve it someday. I’ve got a lot of paying it forward to do.
To everyone who donated to me, Kathy forwarded me your donation receipt and you will ALL be receiving a personal thank you note from me. At first I was going to post my donor list here, but in consideration of one’s privacy, I thought it better that you can leave your name and a link to your site (facebook, twitter, whatever you want) if you’re willing to let your graciousness be acknowledged publicly.
Click to Leave a Comment
Gina, it was so amazing the way people came to your rescue, and Sarah @Starrymom is SO awesome! I sat up with her a good portion of the night sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was behind it.
That douchebag host pissed A LOT of sleepless moms off last night, they can say goodbye to their business!
Danielle´s last blog ..Post Cesarean Feelings Survey Comments : Positive Experiences 
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It wasn’t even a problem!! We did it because we love you, and I’m so glad you are back up and running!!!!
Kayce´s last blog ..Birth Arts Certification Assignment
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Gina! You are valuable to this community and your advocacy for women is inspiring. OF COURSE we all rallied to help! LOVE YOU!
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I’m so glad it all go sorted out!!! I was really worried for you! I wanted to send some cash to help but my credit card went missing. I found it today, in the washer. I guess its good it didn’t go through the DRYER! LOL
I’m sorry you had to go through that, but hopefully now you are all set up for the amount of people who are visiting your site!
<3
Joni Rae´s last blog ..Ostara 2010
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I am still just so in awe of you and so proud of you! I’m glad everything is under control now.
Jill @BabyRabies´s last blog ..I will NEVER
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Yay! Thegood guys win again! JustHost can stick it where the sun don’t shine. 
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I’m sorry you had to go through that yesterday but I have to say that it makes me really happy that so many people wanted to read your words!
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Women should support other women, period. Glad we could help you out, sister! Though I don’t have kids yet, I still pay attention to blogs like yours. They’re a valuable resource to many, and I am constantly forwarding my friends who are moms posts from sites like yours and others that I think they can benefit from reading.
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So glad you are back. Even my husband was upset last night when I informed him of what was going on. It’s so typical though, because there are many crappy hosts and obviously that list includes Just Host now. They are obviously not customer service oriented. I understand you went over their CPU usage, but really, making you pay $150 to get your backup essentially? I wanted to cry for you (and you know, I think I did a bit).
That said, I know you’re using Go Daddy now (love them!). Not sure if it’s possible with how you have things setup, but I know for some – they set their site to backup to an offsite location everyday or every couple of days. That way you have a backup and not just your host! 
Again, SO GLAD you are back!!
Alison´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday ~ The Belly
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Glad to see you’re back up and running. I made a small donation. I appreciate your gratitude but honestly, I want to thank YOU. Thanks for your awesome blog and the way you speak frankly and raise awareness about issues that are truly important. I thought that it would only be fair and reasonable to contribute a small amount to help a blogger that I love to read. Thank you Gina.
FamilyNature´s last blog ..Spring is Hopeful
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Well OF COURSE you deserve that kind of love and support, and more! For years you have dedicated your non-existent free time to championing the rights of women and their babies, never expecting anything in return, just wanting to help others. It was a no-brainer for all of us to jump in and contribute whatever we could to help you in your hour of need. And we would all do it again. We are so totally HERE for you.
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I was so glad I was able to help. You so often say what I’m thinking, just so much logically than I can. You make me make sense to myself. And I have an over-developed sense of justice, and what they did to you was just plain wrong.
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Thank YOU, Gina, for writing such an awesome blog and kicking ass for women all over the world.
Kristen´s last blog ..Not Too Posh to Push (Upright and Spontaneously): A’s Birth Video
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I only helped a bit, but if everyone helps a bit, it can make a huge difference!
Glad to see you’re back online! xoxo
Lisa´s last blog ..Perthpocalypse 22/3/2010
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I’m so glad you’re back (although I still can’t get to you at work)and that I could help in some way. It’s wonderful when the cyber community can come together to fix something so wrong.
And now I’m going to go back up all of my online files just in case (even though I trust GoDaddy would never pull something like that).
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So happy your site is up and running again! You have some amazing support on the internet. I am still in shock you raised that money so fast.
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So glad you are up and running again! I was heartbroken for you last night to think you’d lost everything for good. I’ll tell you, you inspired me to back up all my sites!
Lauren @ Hobo Mama´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday: Breastfeeding study a la The Onion
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I’m stunned they would disable your ADMIN access. That is … unbelievable. Turning off outside access to the files is one thing- but they are YOUR files. They should have no right to keep you from them.
That is disgusting.
Echo´s last blog ..Dear Internet,
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I’m so glad that this has all been worked out. And I am ALSO glad that your post went viral, even if it did end up breaking the internets. Because, really, you have earned all the good stuff coming your way. For reals.
I hope that you have a very calm and non-stressful few days. Or few months. You’ve earned that, too.
Amber´s last blog ..Everything Old is New Again
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glad to see you back…I’m a new reader and LOVE your posts! can’t wait to read more
girlrobot´s last blog ..Quick And Easy Pizza Dough Recipe
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Glad your back up. I read your breastfeeding post via email, but wasn’t able to come over and respond. I think that was a excellent post, and really got people fired up.
The Truth always does!
I think it’s great that people came to your rescue.
Enjoy the res of your week!
Darcel´s last blog ..The Power of Your Child’s Imagination Book Tour
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I am so sorry you had to go through that.
I’m not a fan of GoDaddy either, but hoping they keep your site up!
I know Kathy IRL, and she is as awesome as you said. So glad she was able to help out. The ‘nets wouldn’t be the same without you!
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I’m so glad you’re back up and I’m so glad I figured out how to clear my cache so I could read you again! I feel like such a knob being the 104th person to tweet your post. I feel like I should’ve been one of the first ten or so, but well, what can you do? I’m looking forward to learning how to get around all this stuff soon. I just hired @Starrymom to be my webmistress too so watch for some upcoming changes! Woot woot! (I’m so stoked to work with her).
Melodie´s last blog ..Review and Giveaway: Breastpumps and Briefcases CD and Simply Breastfeeding DVD
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You know, I just bailed from nursing school but I have a bunch of cashish leftover from the eleven billion dollars in student loans that I borrowed to pay for childcare for everyone while I was in class. So I was fully prepared to just put up and then let the paypal donations roll in over the next few days. But DUDE! 18 minutes! It was really an amazing display of the power of the internet, the goodness of people, and most importantly, Gina, the good work that you’re doing!
It was funny – my email makes a little bing! bing! when something comes in (because I don’t get out much and am desperate for contact with the outside world, yes) and my husband was all, “Dude, what the hell is going on over there?!” It was excellent!
Kathy Fitz-Lopez´s last blog ..You should love Kelly like I love Kelly!
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I would like to apologize for being one of the bazillion people who adore you so much that we crashed your site. Your post was simply far too insightful to resist.
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So wished I didn’t have to SLEEP last night and I would have donated…next time there is a crisis, I’m right there. So happy to see your site pop up this morning.
Those are some resourceful friends!
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[...] who hosts her website, decided to hold her website hostage for $150. It’s a long story and she details it here, but it ends with Twitter being a family yet again, and her followers raising the cash in just 18 [...]
TFB-you DO pay it forward. By having the balls to write about the importance of breastfeeding, VBAC, birth, feminism, all things that empower women. You never know the ripple effect you have on perhaps hundreds of thousands of people. Makes you pee a little, right?
Andrea Owen´s last blog ..The Easter Bunny meets Cesarean Awareness
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[...] she broke the internet, or at least broke her host. You can read more about the saga here : The Day I Broke The Internets (Mind you, a lot of us had a LONG night that [...]
I was reading this aloud to my hubby – after I had found your breastfeeding article that went viral (awesome by the way!) and he was telling me to tell that poor lady to go to GoDaddy.com (he used to work for them and recommends them for their fair pricing and fair practices) and was getting all worked up for you about how they can’t do that to your intellectual property and what not! Then at the end you did use GoDaddy and that was vindication LOL. A lot of those hosting providers are slimy like that. I’m just glad to see people came together to make it work for you – what a great story!
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Loved your article! It was actually broken when I was first referred to it so I was glad to finally read it today.
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I am so glad to see that you are up and running again. It’s hard to find a good feminist parenting blog. I know this was stressful but I can’t imagine having a blog post go viral! That is wicked awesome! You broke a server dude! Congrats!
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aawwweeesoome!!! fantastic story. horrifying, yet fulfilling in the end.
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Awesome. I am way late, but I found this post when I really needed to read it. We’ve been struggling since day one with breastfeeding and we’re going on 5 months with exclusively breastfeeding and it’s so hard to keep on going through my son’s tears and my own when formula is constantly offered, as if it will solve all of our problems instead of creating a million new ones.
Thank you for telling it like it is.
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