The ‘Jacko Effect’ Taxes Performance for News Sites, Google, IM

The death of Michael Jackson on Thursday caused a surge of Jacko-related searches on Google, popular news and social networking sites, and chat clients, causing performance and availability issues. Google initially thought the spike was an attack and server protection protocols kicked in for 25 minutes. Interestingly, Yahoo News broke its record of unique visitors on Thursday, with the previous record being on US election day last year.

Starting at 5:30 p.m., the average download speed for news sites tracked by Keynote went from less than four seconds to almost 9 seconds, and their average availability dropped from almost 100 percent to 86 percent, the company said. News sites monitored by Keynote returned to normal performance and availability levels by 9:15 p.m.

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