Busy sites with tons of traffic.

[Eric33]

I am guessing that if your site gains popularity and lots of traffic, eventually you would need to install multiple servers and internet lines into your house?
Specially if it gains an income?

If I had 5 million hits a month and made money with adsense.. I would need more space than a hostgator account right in order to handle a heavy site?..

I know what the answer is, but just wanted to confirm my idea.

[Lenni]

You would need a dedicated server or multiple. Maybe even renting some space for your own racks in a datacenter and then buy gigabit connections directly from the telcos.

[cheat-master30]

I'm 100% sure most big companies and websites aren't hosted at someone's home, but at an actual data center or company. Heck, most normal websites should probably go with an actual webhost. But I'd say that yes, the biggest forums and sites do require multiple dedicated servers and what not.

[Eric33]

You would need a dedicated server or multiple. Maybe even renting some space for your own racks in a datacenter and then buy gigabit connections directly from the telcos.

I thought a long while ago I saw this guy who had a website that generated tons of traffic and he actually had servers and like 15 phone lines coming into his home. he bragged about just rolling out of bed right to work on the computer lol.

I'm 100% sure most big companies and websites aren't hosted at someone's home, but at an actual data center or company. Heck, most normal websites should probably go with an actual webhost. But I'd say that yes, the biggest forums and sites do require multiple dedicated servers and what not.

What about facebook and MySpace?...

Obviously they are huge and have like 5 million hits every hour so they must have a small building that houses all the servers and lines that support the site? full time employees to maintain the servers around the clock ect ect...

This stuff just amazes me.