BeerAdvocate is now silly fast.

Greetings!

Just a quick update on some behind the scenes work we've been doing to create a more responsive and secure website; as we gear up to launch BA mobile and redesign BA.

504 Is No More
The cause of that annoying "504 Gateway Error" (and related lag) has been isolated and resolved. It turned out to be a single 3rd party bit of inefficient code that didn't scale well during peak site usage times. (Big thanks to @Mike for this one.)

CDN
We're now using a next-generation CDN (Content Delivery Network) for our static content. This means that our traffic is now distributed across 24 data centers throughout the world; instead of just 1 in California. This should be considerably faster for everyone; especially for our international users.

Misc Updates & Bug Fixes

• Mike and I have also optimized our new monster web server for high traffic.
  
• Improved search results for Beers, Places, and Events.
• DNS updated to fix an issue that cause failed emails for some members.
• Permissions fixed to allow uploading beer/place images again.
• Dozens of other code optimizations.

That's it for now. In the meantime, enjoy the improved performance.

Cheers!