Reddit competitor Voat.co has returned to regular service after a tumultuous week of new Reddit traffic crashed the up and coming site Thursday. Twitter posts over the weekend forecast good news coming soon, and the site’s return has come to fruition.
A Wild Week at Voat Caused by a Wild Week at Reddit
The Internet news posting site has seen disgruntled Reddit users flood the site after the swift dismissal of beloved moderator Victoria Taylor. Taylor was let go after the recent Jessie Jackson AMA debacle on Reddit last Wednesday. His commentary in response to tough AMA questions was not well-received, and she was the fall girl for the situation. This has led to many subreddits shutting down in protest of Taylor’s firing and Voat has been getting plenty of new visitors.
Happy 4th of July! We are hard at work and we are sure we will have great news soon. Thank you all for your overwhelming support!
— Voat (@voatco) July 4, 2015Voat came to be early in 2015 and has seen fast results for its ethos of providing a free speech online platform alternative to Reddit. Voat has seen massive traffic spikes over the last two months that have overwhelmed the site, which clearly was not equipped to handle Reddit-level traffic.
Voat surged from a ranking below 80,000 on Alexa to one of top 15,000 sites online and one of the top 2000 sites in the Unites States within six weeks. The return should indicate that the site can now handle the elevated traffic levels.
Will Voat be able to capitalize on Reddit's internal issues and remain as a top global web-sharing website, or have they missed their opportunity? Share and comment below.