On 20 January 2012 01:06, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
No, there isn't a difference. A blackout where everyone sees a page with a particular message instead of the article they wanted is exactly the same as unscheduled downtime where everyone sees a page with a particular message instead of the article they wanted. If search engines and caches can survive one of them, they can survive both, since they are identical from an external perspective.
I'm sorry. but this is silly. I have a hard time believing that you aren't simply trolling here.
How is it silly? I'm not trolling, I just think the way the blackout was implemented looked really unprofessional and I can't see any good reason for not having done a better job. All we wanted was for anyone viewing any page on the site to see a particular static page rather than what they would usually see. That isn't difficult to do, as evidenced by the fact that it happens automatically whenever the site breaks.