| Commentary | A few years ago, it was P2P file sharing systems that generated floods of network traffic on the Internet, causing some universities to block their use. Now, MySpace and other social network sites are consuming huge amounts of Internet bandwidth and causing similar concern. As the PC World article points out, the nature of social networking sites puts great stress on the Internet DNS in particular. So the next time you are surfing MySpace or some other social networking site and encounter sluggish performance, don't assume it's your computer or home network to blame.
→ See also - How MySpace Profile Trackers Work
→ See also - How MySpace Profile Trackers Work
Yeah, um, actually, a DNS server is contacted only the first time (usually per 24 hour period) that the name “myspace.com” is typed into the browser. After that, it is not needed because the computer can remember the address. And all the extra words they put in front of “myspace.com” still resolve to the same IP, so those don’t call up the DNS either. And the same happens for all the photos loaded from flickr and youtube and photobucket and such. So every 24 hours, your computer will make 2-10 DNS lookups. Hardly worth noting for a DNS server.
Mike,
Read the PC World article again. Especially where it says “Social-networking sites create large volumes of DNS traffic because they pull content from all over the Internet…” and “A single MySpace page can have anywhere from 200 to 300 DNS lookups, while a normal news site with ads might have 10 to 15 DNS lookups…”