Hosting the Next President?

Derek Vaughn who is the VP of Marketing for HostMySite.com and a speaker that I met at this past years HostingCon in Chicago, posted a pretty interesting post related to the Mike Huckabee campaign website.  I have had a little experience developing websites for political candidates and even a foreign government once and I can kind of relate to what he’s saying here, although not on this scale.

As many of you now know, I was recently appointed Vice President of Marketing at HostMySite.com. It’s always envigorating to join a new organization and observe the inner machinations of a class operation.

One of the more interesting and unusual things that I have been watching is the Official website of the Mike Huckabee Presidential campaign. The site is entitled, ‘Mike Huckabee for President’ and can be found at www.mikehuckabee.com.

It just so happens that a great developer client of HostMySite.com, GSL Solutions, specializes in political websites. GSL Solutions created the ‘Mike Huckabee for President’ website, and it is hosted at HostMySite.com.

The really interesting thing about the behind-the-scenes view of the website is the incredible amount of effort required to keep up with a site that has grown from almost zero traffic to an Alexa 10,000 site. This traffic increase has occured in just the last several weeks – as the campaign has heated up with all the Presidential Primary activity. Here is a graph of the Alexa traffic report for www.mikehuckabee.com

Inside the effort at HostMySite.com is a great communication network that observes the activities of the candidate – particularly television appearances such as ‘Larry King Live’ or a Presidential debate. The team also notes when major media outlets mention the site with a link, such as happened last week with the New York Times. Each of these media mentions is noted and the team briefed, in order to stand ready to scale up bandwidth or other server resources if needed. Thusfar, the site has been rock solid – and a crticial component to the Huckabee Presidential campaign.

Michael Gaines, President of GSL Solutions described the importance of the website, ”I spoke with the Governor after the debate about the website and he acknowledged how important the site has been to their ability to interact with supporters and sustain his campaign for President. The anticipation is that the growth of traffic and supporters will likely double leading up to the final primary votes. Our company has been working with HostMySite.com for the last 6 years and we have thoroughly enjoyed the relationship and support. This particular site and its momentum are unlike anything we’ve experienced. I know many of the HostMySite.com technical staff have been working hard to help keep this site up over the past few days.”

Needless to say, HostMySite.com realizes the importance of free and fair elections in a democracy – as well as the free distribution of the candidate’s views and opinions – in order to help voters choose the next President. It has been a priveledge to assist in that process with the ‘Mike Huckabee for President’ website.

So, remember that the next time you plan on hosting the website of a major Presidential candidate, you watch the major media outlets – and have your finger on the bandwith trigger!
This content was written by Derek Vaughan, and is provided courtesy of the dedicated server hosting specialists at HostMySite.com.

Here’s a link to his Blog Post: Web Host Industry Review | theWHIR Blogs : Hosting the Next President?