The document describes the growth of Dante St James' Joomla-powered website business over several years, starting with a single website in 2008 and growing to over 300 websites serving 3.7 million unique visitors and 14 million pageviews per month by 2014. It outlines the technical infrastructure and tools used, including servers, extensions, templates, and project management. It also notes some mistakes made along the way, such as not hiring a developer sooner and choosing extensions based on what's free rather than what works best.

1. Taking Joomla to Millions
There’s a reason why it’s the road less travelled…

2. Dante St James
1. Shire boy – with THAT name.
2. Failed psychologist, church minister and
radio announcer.
3. In charge of digital & new media
operations at our 2nd biggest radio network.
4. Take way too many selfies.
5. Recently single.

3. We did
everything
wrong.

4. But we got
there in the
end…

5. August 2008
1 website (J1.5)
1 staffer (me)

6. February 2009
17 websites (J1.5)
1 staffer (me)

7. May 2010 – Day 1
35 websites (J1.5)
5 staff across
four states

8. January 2012
67 J1.5 websites
4 Wordpress sites
6 staff, 5 states

9. October 2014
291 J3.x sites
2 J2.5 sites
28 Wordpress sites
15 staff, 5 states
1 Developer

10. Per Month
3.7 million uniques
14 million pageviews
300+ websites
99% of this is served by Joomla
3.x

11. Per Month
3.7 million uniques
14 million pageviews
300+ websites
99% of this is served by Joomla
3.x

12. Per Month
3.7 million uniques
14 million pageviews
300+ websites
99% of this is served by Joomla
3.x

13. Per Month
3.7 million uniques
14 million pageviews
300+ websites
99% of this is served by Joomla
3.x

14. About 30 JED-available Extensions
4 Custom Built Extensions

15. Templates
Joomlart T3_blank Template
GavickPro Music State template

16. Display Modules
RAXO All Mode Pro
JA Facebook Like Box
JUX Weather Forecast
Easy Custom Code (for embeds)
YouTube Gallery Module

17. Components
GB Slider (custom)
Simple Image Gallery Pro
iJoomla AdAgency Pro
RS Form! Pro
YouTube Gallery
Mijo Polls
JCE Editor
Foobla obGrabber/obRSS
SourceCoast JFBConnect

18. Plugins
nonumber Advanced Module Manager
nonumber Cache Cleaner
Advanced Google Analytics
JA Google Map

19. External Systems
Watchful.li – monitoring uptime and for
managing deployments & updates
Campaign Monitor – newsletters
YouTube/Soundcloud

20. Project
Management/Development
Agile Development Methods using Trello
to manage tasks
Atlassian Bitbucket and a Development
Environment for all dev & testing

21. Infrastructure
Linux/Apache server in Brisbane
data centre hosting 70% of sites
representing 20% of traffic
Rackspace Cloud Service (Sydney)
with autoscaling hosting 30% of sites
representing 80% of traffic.

22. Autoscaling
Using lsyncd to sync files across
between 2 and 5 servers
Time-based scaling, rather than
resources based.
Cost between $410-$620 per month

23. What I did wrong.
1. Tried doing it all on my own.

24. What I did wrong.
2. Choosing extensions based on
What’s Free, rather than What
Works.

25. What I did wrong.
3. Not having a single baseline
for all code, including templates.

26. What I did wrong.
4. Backups. You’d think I’d know
better… but nooooooooooooo!

27. What I did wrong.
5. I didn’t hire a developer until
July 2014. Yep. You read that
right.

28. Dante St James
dstjames@grantbroadcasters.com.au
Skype: dante.st.james
… and on several apps where single guys can be
found trawling for a date…