We recently helped Hand Media International Ltd, a long‑established and award‑winning media company, sort out a pretty stressful website problem — the kind that usually comes with an urgent phone call.
When their Web Design Manager Ghyslaine Cordrey, got in touch, their website was going offline soon after server reboots. Everything would look fine … and then suddenly drop. Not ideal when your business relies heavily on online publishing and digital platforms.
From experience, this kind of behaviour often points to one thing: unwanted automated traffic hitting the server hard.
A Quick Look at What Was Really Going On
Instead of jumping straight to “you need a bigger server”, we took a step back and looked at the wider setup:
- What happened immediately after a reboot
- How much traffic was hitting the sites, and from where
- How the server and websites were structured overall
It quickly became clear that the server was being flooded with non‑human requests. Whether malicious or just badly behaved bots, the effect was the same — too much load, too quickly, and the server couldn’t cope.
Keeping the Fix Simple (and Effective)
Our advice was deliberately straightforward: put Cloudflare in front of the websites and let it deal with the rubbish traffic before it ever reached the server.
In particular, we recommended:
- Using Cloudflare’s firewall rules to spot likely bot traffic
- Challenging or blocking suspicious requests
- Reducing unnecessary load without complicating the hosting setup
No big rebuilds. No panic upgrades. Just sensible protection in the right place.
The Results
Once Cloudflare was switched on and configured properly, the improvement was almost instant:
- The websites stayed online after reboots
- Server load dropped noticeably
- Performance improved for real visitors
- The server stopped being hammered by junk traffic
Most importantly, the solution was easy to manage and didn’t add extra headaches for the in‑house team.
What Hand Media International Had to Say
We were really pleased to receive this feedback from Ghyslaine:
Olly Campion and Web:D gave us excellent advice on our hosting, server setup, and overall website architecture. Their recommendations were practical, clear, and easy to implement.
Olly specifically advised us to use Cloudflare to block bot traffic, which made a huge difference. It helped stabilise our websites, improve performance, and reduce unnecessary server strain almost immediately.
We really appreciated the straightforward guidance and would happily recommend Oliver and Web:D to others!
Ghyslaine Cordrey, Web Design Manager
A Bit About Hand Media International
Hand Media International is an independently owned media company founded in 1990, working across a wide range of B2B sectors including:
- Security
- Fire
- Health & Safety
- Defence
- Confectionery, Bakery & Snacks
- International Trade
- House Building
- Country Music
One of their best‑known brands, International Security Buyer, is a leading global publication in the security industry. Published ten times a year, it delivers expert news, in‑depth features, interviews, and insight across print, digital, and live events.
With strong editorial teams, curated data, and a clear focus on quality, Hand Media International continues to set the bar high across the industries it serves.
Clear Advice, No Nonsense
This is a good example of how we like to work at Web:D — no jargon, no unnecessary upselling, just practical advice that fixes the problem.
If your WordPress site is suffering from random downtime, server overload, or traffic that doesn’t look quite right, we’re always happy to take a look and point you in the right direction.
Sometimes the simplest fix makes the biggest difference.