Visitors to the BBC Genome/BBC Programme Index in recent months have been becoming increasingly frustrated with technical issues preventing access.
“502 Bad Gateway” errors were a frequent sight. Unusually long waits for requested content to finally appear was also a fairly common experience.
It’s not clear why these experiences were unique to this particular portion of the BBC’s website but it certainly suggests the content is hosted on less robust infrastructure than the rest of the corporation’s online offerings.
However, in the last week or so, a new measure has been put in place – presumably to better control the load on whatever hosting arrangement is in place for the Programme Index content.
Visitors to BBC Genome/Programme Index must now participate in a short test, to prove they are human.
This quick visual test should keep out many bots and crawlers, and reduce strain on the hosting server(s), and provide a better quality experience for legitimate users.
It certainly seems to be working so far.
Acknowledgements
FEATURE IMAGE:
PICTURED: screenshot of BBC Programme Index page – BBC Two programme listing from January 1st 1970. COPYRIGHT: BBC.
Acknowledgements