Stress-testing results are in!
December 12th, 2008
Through stress-testing, we had the following questions to be answered about the new version of GoTryTHIS:
- How much cpu usage, storage, and bandwidth is used on the dashboard under very high load?
- How many historical clicks can the dashboard handle and still be snappy?
- What is the greatest sustainable rate of clicks per minute that any single site can push to the dashboard before there is a backlog, and where does that backlog happen?
- Do the clicks that we send match the clicks that get reported? How accurate is GoTryTHIS?
To test this, we setup multiple cloud-based ‘servers’, one for the dashboard where all the data ends up, and five test sites. On each test site there were multiple scripts to continually “click” on random test links. These were the links I was giving out at the end when we did two really big tests, with 120 people running these scripts running for 24 hours, simulating months of activity.
Here are the results. Please keep in mind that everyone will have different results based on the servers that their site is on.
CPU Usage:
If you’re doing millions of clicks a day, talk to us first. You’ll need a dedicated server or you can use our new hosted version and we’ll handle things for you.
Bandwidth:
For every 10,000 clicks there will be an extra 4MB of outgoing bandwidth from your site to the dashboard and 1MB of incoming bandwidth to your site from the dashboard.
Storage:
Every 10,000 clicks represent 0.016GB of storage, or 16MB, on the dashboard. Clicks are only stored temporarily on individual sites.
Snappy:
We simulated sending one dashboard 1,500,000 clicks per month for three months from three sites. This totaled in the dashboard having 4,500,000 clicks. I’m very happy to report that it ran as fast as a new installation.
Backlog:
Currently the dashboard can handle a sustained rate of about 2 million clicks per day from all the sites combined before a backlog starts to be created on the sites. As soon as there is a dip in traffic, the backlog reduces until it catches up. We will work to improve these numbers even further after the launch.
Accuracy:
We compared what was supposed to be sent to what actually arrived and found that 20-30 clicks out of 4,500,000 clicks didn’t get recorded. That is only 0.0000067% missed clicks, under very high load. Considering all the ways a click can missed being recorded, this is extremely accurate.
Conclusion:
The new version is exceeding our expectations for performance! 
Thanks to everyone who helped with our stress testing!
yeah!!
will we be able to order it soon?
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Yes, relatively speaking. I’m not announcing a launch date until everything is in place and ready. But, that is not far off.
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Linda Reash December 12th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Arggh, i really did wanna take part in the beta – but this sounds exciting
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
This was just testing clicks coming in.
Nobody has the new version yet, in beta or otherwise. Only a handful of friends have even seen it.
Though we are doing lots of testing.
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david-about results marketing December 12th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
keep up the good work John,
can’t wait for the new version to come out.
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Thank you!
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Bogdan Irimia December 12th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Hi John,
When I left the program running I turned it off after the stats stopped increasing. For me it stopped at, I believe, 50,000.
I own Gotrythis Blackhat but haven’t used it.
I only just started using Gotrythis through Howie’s Apprentice program. I like it a lot.
Now I have to install my version just to see how the Blackhat version is different from the regular program.
If I happened to help you out I’m glad,
Paul
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Thanks for running the stress test script.
Which Howie? I’ll have to thank him.
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Paul O'Blenes December 12th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I’m glad to have been able to take part in both stress tests.
One quick question:
For existing black hat users that already have many instances of single site installations, how will we go about integrating our site’s data into one installation? Will there be an import utility?
Thanks!
Lauren
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Thank you for your help Lauren.
Yes, there is an upgrade path that will import your data and stats.
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Lauren December 12th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I’m also black-hat owner.
One of my domains is hyphenated. Because (I suspect) of the tracking implementation in v.1 (which utilized a hyphen to isolate tracking code), I could never get GTT to function properly on the hyphenated domain. Is that limitation lifted in v.2?
Glad to see v.2 finally nearing completion, especially since it was mentioned with the release of v.1, 2 1/2 years ago.
Todd
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I honestly don’t think anyone ever reported that. I’ll have it looked into in case it hasn’t been reported and fixed already,
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 9:25 am
I think it has been fixed already. One of the people working on this project does all her testing on a domain with a dash.
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Todd December 12th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Great to hear John – been looking forward to this release since the adwords blackbook presentation
As an existing GTT blackhat owner, what is the upgrade cost? I’m also in the same boat as Lauren with many instances of single site installations.
cheers and thanx!
Tav
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Tav, I’ll let you walk away with a free upgrade and not pay a cent if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, you can join me in an exciting ride as we take loads of user feedback and keep adding features full-time, now that all the R&D is done. Prices will be announced at the launch.
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Tav December 12th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Hi John
Glad that the tests have proved conclusively that this is going to be one heck of a program.
I have had the Black Hat Version from day 1 launch and to be honest I never used it for about 12 months.
But after using it for such a long time now I almost exclusively use Go try this. Its simply brilliant and the fact that you can dynamically create links is fantastic!
Look forward to the new version.
Take care and thanks for all your persistence to bring only the best.
Hamant
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Hamant Keval December 12th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Hope lots of people appreciate it come launch day.
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John Reel December 12th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
John -
You can’t believe how much I’ve been waiting for this. But being a software developer myself, I’m tickled to see how thoroughly you’re doing the stress testing. That’s the part that most software factories – even the big corporate ones – totally underestimate and it always causes big problems.
Congrats on a great job.
David
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Glad it is appreciated. I learned this lesson the hard way and try not to repeat too many mistakes of the past. Cost me a lot, but now GoTryTHIS has the backbone to be ready for prime time.
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David Perdew December 12th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Hi John,
I don’t own GoTryThis but it has been (strongly) recommended to me by a couple of folks (notably Andre Chaperon). I’m hanging out for the next launch.
So forgive me if this question is obvious to existing users who already understand how it all works…
I am trying to piece together in my head (I’m a software developer) how GTT works. Do YOU (i.e. GoTryThis) host the “DashBoard” component – or is the idea that WE (i.e. ME) install the DashBoard (server component) on our central site and then install the click capture bit (client component) on each of our sites (feeding data to the server)?
On a slightly separate topic, does GTT enable us to mask the traffic source from the target (merchant) site?
i.e. mySite (click) –> myClickHubSite (GTT Dashboard) –> merchant
This seems to be a “good thing” – but from your test description it sounds like it is now more like a direct link to the merchant from mySite click with a forked stat collection going to the dashboard.
Looking forward to hearing more about the re-launch.
Cheers
Steve
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John Reel Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Hi Steve.
Your question won’t be obvious to anyone! lol. The new version is totally unlike the previous one in the way things work. There was no separation before between Dashboards and sites, and I don’t think I’ve talked about it much yet.
Both of the scenarios you suggested are 100% correct regarding server/client components. All this information will be coming soon, so please stay tuned.
The answer to your second question is yes to your example, while your interpretation of the test description is not correct, if I understood you correctly.
Hope that helps,
John.
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Steve Reply:
December 12th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Hi John,
Thanks – very helpful. And sorry if my geek-propeller was spinning a little fast earlier! :^)
BTW – is it a dumb question to ask why GTT is labeled “Black Hat”? I would think that cloaking links and masking traffic sources would be more correctly considered “Smart Hat” – it’s not like you’re spamming people or taking them to a p0rn site when they click your “free money” link – you are simply protecting yourself from less ethical marketers.
So to summarize and check my understanding:
* You have separated the “Dashboard” and the “Sites” component – but both are installed on our own site(s)/servers. No information flows back to GTT servers.
* GTT *does* mask traffic source from the merchant, but it does not work the way I had described it. Hey, so long as it works I don’t care how!
Do you have an approximate timeframe for the launch. Is it as soon as you finish answering all my questions…
Can you tell I’m keen to give you my money… :^)
Looking forward to becoming a customer.
Cheers
Steve
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 12:23 am
The previous version was labeled such purely for the marketing zing it would give the campaign. I even took on a different persona writing the content. It really wasn’t me though, so I couldn’t stick with that. The new version isn’t like that.
As far as your understanding on the first part, just wait a bit longer and I’ll explain it all.
I think I understand what you mean with the other question now. If you are asking if the web site that the user arrives at will be able to identify that user by IP, or if it will all appear to come from a single one, then the answer is that it will identify them by the visitor’s IP. If you are asking if their logs will show all the referrers coming from you, then the answer is yes, we think.
Steve December 12th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
John,
Good to hear GTT2 is coming out soon.
Please take the time to create detailed training on install, use and more.
I am sure many of us would appreciate you making the install and use simple of what is obviously sophisticated software!
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Have you seen the SetupBOT install from version 1? We’ve done a lot to make it easy, and we’re still doing more. We’ll do our best.
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Brian December 12th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Hey there John. I have quite a few installs of BH over so many domains. I can’t wait until we will be able to combine all on one server. I have been using gotrythis for paid traffic. Lately i have been working on SEO and free traffic. Are there any benefits of trying to drive traffic with SEO to a gotrythis landing page? I have never tried this but was curious if it was possible.
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 12:32 am
I think you’re going to love the next version.
As I understand it from user reports, search engines pick up GoTryThis links as separate from their targets. I’m not sure how this would be possible to control though.
I’m going to see if we can find out all these tricks.
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Underground December 12th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Sounds good so far. Let’s hope you too don’t melt your server during launch as it’s becoming a little to frequent these days
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 12:25 am
We’re now on self adjusting cloud servers, so it should be fine.
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Peter Koning December 12th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Hey John,
Glad to hear the new version is almost complete…Good Job!
I am a owner of the BlackHat version from your initial launch…are upgrades free to existing users? If so that’s a beautiful thing…if not, what is the upgrade cost going to be?
Thanks John
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Thanks Rob.
Quoting from my response to a similar question above:
“I’ll let you walk away with a free upgrade and not pay a cent if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, you can join me in an exciting ride as we take loads of user feedback and keep adding features full-time, now that all the R&D is done. Prices will be announced at the launch.”
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Rob December 12th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Dose GTT2 work with wordpress without having to edit any code?
Thanks
Dee
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Hi Dee.
It works the same as version 1 in that respect. The WordPress fix is really quick and all done through the WordPress admin.
Instructions are here:
http://www.gotrythis.com/blog/2007/12/06/86/
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Dee December 12th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
“If you are asking if their logs will show all the referrers coming from you, then the answer is yes, we think.”
John why do you say “we think”?
that it did not.
I’m also a blackhat owner and would love this to be the case.
I thought it did this already, but I found out he hard way
Wish i had known that.
If you could make sure that the referrers is definitely the GTT domain/installation, that would be perfect. Perhaps if the ‘framed’ version (title and or keywords) was made to absolutely provide the referrers, that might work.
By the way, I suspect the search engines pick up framed GTT links because of the title & keyword & description tags.
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Oh. Well, it’s been a while, and I can’t remember every detail any more. I was going to test it to confirm. Why do you want this to be the case?
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Dhira Reply:
December 15th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
John,
Because there are cases where being able to block or replace the referrers would prevent networks from seeing exactly where the traffic we provide is coming from.
If it looks like it’s coming from our domain (GTT domain), then they won’t question it as much as if say it was actually bought traffic from a traffic provider they may or may not frown upon.
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John Reel Reply:
December 15th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I see.
The way it works is that the referrer is the actual referring site, not the one gotrythis is installed on. This is a good thing for most uses I think.
However, if you frame the link (or cloak it as some would call it) by adding a title tag, then the referrer is your site.
I haven’t put any thought into how we could have the referrer be the gtt site, and not frame it, but it doesn’t sound like it would be impossible.
Later, when we have feature request voting, please add something on this.
Thank you,
John.
Dhira December 13th, 2008 at 2:45 am
I draw a blank when wondering exactly what GTT will help me with. I don’t need to see a salespage to get me in to the buying mood when GTT is available, but getting a 30 second elevator speech from you describing exactly what us guys that didn’t get in on the original version purchase can expect to accomplish with GTT 2 would be so cool coming from you. I did see you present it at John’s seminar via dvd, but that was so long ago and I have done forgetted it.
sincerely
larry e
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John Reel Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Hi Larry. I’ll be putting up the basics of the new site soon.
In the mean-time: GoTryTHIS is the only solution for protecting, managing, and tracking all your online marketing of all types, for all your web sites and affiliate promotions, in one place, in real-time.
More will come.
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larry eitel December 13th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Hi John:
Glad to hear that ver 2 will be released shortly.
I’ve been learning about the program, and I have one quick question. Will GTT work with HexaTrack Pro? I know that you have updated the software in ver 1.4 to work with XC, and I’m hopeful that it will work with HexaTrack as well (I believe HexaTrack is hosted, not self-hosted).
Thanks,
Ron
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John Reel Reply:
December 15th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Hi Ron. No idea, but I’ve made a note to look into it sometime.
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Ron B December 14th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Hi John,
I bought three products from you – GTT black, Sales Bully & Adwords balckbook. I really like your products.
When will GTT2 be available and how much it costs for existing GTT-1 black hat user?
Thanks
Willie
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John Reel Reply:
December 15th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hi Willie. The first two products are mine, the third is from “Mr. X.” And thank you.
GoTryTHIS 2 will be available soon, and that’s the best I can offer.
Quoting from my response to a similar question above:
“I’ll let you walk away with a free upgrade and not pay a cent if that’s what you want to do. Otherwise, you can join me in an exciting ride as we take loads of user feedback and keep adding features full-time, now that all the R&D is done. Prices will be announced at the launch.”
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Willie December 14th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Hey when do you plan to release this new version…
I have been using GT for 2-3 months now and it has been great. Can’t wait for the new version.
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John Reel Reply:
March 6th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Thanks Herman. It’s coming out this month!
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heman February 4th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Hi,
I purchased Black Hat when it first came out, from what I remember ALL upgrades are to be free with Black Hat (original version) of GTT, so I expect upgrading to go easy : )
Can’t wait to try new version…
Thanks,
-Brett
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John Reel Reply:
March 6th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Hi Brett.
Not “ALL” upgrades, but nice try!
There is a free upgrade option for you though. I’ll be sending out information shortly.
Thanks,
John.
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Brett February 6th, 2009 at 10:39 pm