Your website usually “crashes” during traffic spikes because your server runs out of something that limits how many requests it can handle at once, so visitors start getting timeouts or 5xx errors instead of pages.
Most of the time it’s one of these bottlenecks: CPU/RAM on a small plan, a cap on concurrent processes (often called entry processes or PHP workers on WordPress), a database that can’t keep up with too many simultaneous connections, or a page that forces expensive work on every visit (heavy plugins, slow queries, external API calls, or uncompressed media).
| What you see | What it usually means | First fix to try |
|---|---|---|
| 503 “service unavailable” | The origin server is overloaded or your host is throttling requests | Add full-page caching and a CDN for static files, then re-test |
| 504 “gateway timeout” | Requests are queuing because PHP can’t process them fast enough | Reduce dynamic work per page (cache, trim heavy plugins), raise worker capacity if possible |
| 508 or “resource limit reached” | You hit shared-host limits on CPU, RAM, I/O, or concurrent processes | Turn on server-side caching, reduce cron jobs, move to a plan with isolated resources |
| “Too many connections” (database) | Traffic or slow queries saturated database connections | Fix slow queries, add object caching, and check connection handling |
| Site loads, then suddenly white screen or 500 errors | PHP fatal error under load or a plugin/theme conflict | Check error logs during the spike, update/replace the offending component |
Spikes hit harder when the site is already heavy, so it’s worth reviewing the usual speed culprits in our FAQ on what causes a website to load slowly and fixing the biggest offenders first.
If you want a practical way to pinpoint the cause, do this in order: (1) look at the exact error code and the timestamp, (2) check server graphs for CPU, memory, and process counts during that minute, (3) confirm whether the spike is real customers or bots by reviewing top pages, countries, and user agents, (4) identify which URL or action melts first (homepage, booking form, checkout, search), and (5) re-test after each change so you know what actually helped.
For Orlando businesses, we often see “spike days” from TV mentions, social giveaways, Google Ads ramps, seasonal demand (like pest control surges), or weather-driven traffic during storms, and the fix is usually a mix of caching plus hosting that can absorb sudden concurrency without falling over.
If you’re on WordPress, moving to a plan built for surges is often the cleanest win, and our WordPress hosting is set up around caching, security controls, and stable performance under bursty traffic.
Once the site stays online, you can track whether the work actually improved user experience using the metrics explained in our FAQ on Core Web Vitals and web design.
If you tell us what platform you’re on (WordPress, Shopify, custom), what error you saw (503, 504, 508, 500), and when it happened, we can usually narrow it down fast and recommend the smallest set of changes that stops the next spike from taking you offline.
