This is mainly a question for neomax since I know he's affiliated with AU, but if anyone else has any comments feel free.

Since ebay's problems I've tried to check around other auction sites on the net, just to maybe get a little variety on where I could post auctions. I've been to AU before but at the time I really liked ebay and had no reason to switch since I'm not a huge seller as it is, but since the shutdowns to their server I thought I'd explore other options. Anways I'm getting off the subject but I guess I wanted to let you know where I was coming from. *L*

Just a few minutes ago I got a "HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy" message when trying to access AU. I've just tried it again and the message is still there. Now my question isn't to try to point out faults; the time I DID go to AU I found it a very professional looking site and well made, but not nearly as strong customer base as I would want. My question is asked in real interest as somebody who might be interest in posting there someday soon.

Finally to my question *L*: Does the server right now not have enough "oomph" to handle the customer base there? It said the server was too "busy" which at least makes me assume that people are able to get in, but no one else can get in as a result. I'm guessing AU has had its share of curiousity seekers like me looking at them after ebay's crashes. Is that maybe the reason for the inability to handle the volume of accesses? Or am I totally off the mark and it's really just down when it says it's busy?

I guess I had multiple questions instead of only one. :-) But any that anyone could answer (or just comment on) would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Bill
 

Thanks for the post. I appreciate where you're coming from and I'm embarrassed that you had any difficulty getting into to view an auction at the AU site earlier today.

Let me assure you the server's have enough "oomph" ... and what you experienced was something I'd consider extraordinary.

An example of what I'd call an extraordinary event would be one of the new "we do the search for you" sites testing a way of spydering our site to build their search database ... in otherwords a bot could be culprit for such an event these days.

Let me say that I don't doubt your report and indeed, I was talking to another site owner who reported difficulty getting in about 5:00 p.m. EDT today. I checked from my location upon hearing his report and things had returned to normal, at least from my location in Atlanta.

I've also seen the "server too busy" error in the past and it used to be much more common, particularly in prime time. In the time before April, when we did a major server upgrade, the error was often related to traffic peaks. I haven't seen that error once since.

When that used to happen, though, I would simply key in one of our affiliated sites such as laauctions.com, pennauctions.com, ctauctions.com, etc. (You can get a list of them at www.aun.com and enter through the backdoor -- typically fast.

You should also know that each of these affiliates has dedicated bandwidth and, while they all address the same database, they are essentially redundant paths.

Bottomline, we're "organized" along an affiliate model and while one server may be hit, overall, our site is probably not down as long as our affiliate sites can be reached.

I will inquire about the issue you experienced Monday and see if I can be more specific as to its cause.

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Neomax
[email protected]

I actually went back to AU later this evening and had absolutely no problems getting in. I still liked the look of the site but didn't have the time to really look around yet. I was mainly just curious if that "busy" message happened often or it was a once-in-awhile occurance and I think you answered that pretty well. I'm really interested in how some of my "stuff" might sell at other auction houses and while I definitely can't promise I'll throw all my auctions onto AU it's definitely one that'll get a good run of tests from me over a period of time.

Thanks again,
Bill