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We survived EF

A week has gone by since Eurofurence 30.
The yearly Con Crud has nearly passed.
While still registering higher then usual traffic, we managed to curb the AI crawler avalance that slowed down the YiffyToys shop server.
All regular toys are counted and sorted. All discrepancies accounted for.
YiffyToys Shirts and table cloth are washed and folded for storage.
We can even see the floor in our storage again.
All manufacturers who sent us reduced-price toys for the rummage bin on our table received their counts.
Cash is counted and the books are up to date again.
Orders to restock our shelfs are already out or will do so in the next few days. Including a few custom toys people contacted us about.

The only tasks remaining are to send back unsold, reduced toys and make photos of a few new toy models we picked up *hint*.
Inspect the truck, that got a severe dent by a foreign object on the Autobahn.
And rest. Finally get some rest.

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Slow YiffyToys server

Since the first day of Eurofurence 30 last week, we are experiencing very slow response time.
This comes from a high number of requests being thrown at our server.
We are regularly informed about his happening by an external hosting service sending out emails when our most important URLs are not accessible.

The problem

They seem to start daily around midnight and go on until the late afternoon.
Requests come from a very large number of IP-Adresses.
Initially they where getting lost in the layered navigation of our categories being filtered by colours, sizes, species,…
Now they seem to have shifted to the search function. Doing complex product searches.
Both are already forbidden by robots.txt with an additional rate limit for requests.
These are being ignored.

Impact

Apart from the obvious impact of slowing down or preventing customers from using the shop or this blog,
this also limits us in using the backend of the shop and for our inhouse-tools to load data about products and sales for printing packaging, storage labels, invoices and postage.
It also limits payment providers from calling back our shop to inform us about the status of payments.

Our response

We are keeping an eye on the logs.
At first we improved server response times by optimising our PHP and Database settings.
Then we included „rel=nofollow“ to links in layered navigation, preventing web-scaping bots from following these links
We are currently investigating ways to rate limit access to the advanced search function on the server side.
This is an ongoing issue and we will update this blog posting.

Result

So far a complex and technologically expensive rate limiting of access to the advanced search function of the shop seems to keep the situation under control.

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Slowly returning from Eurofurence

We returned from EF30 last night.
The truck was unloaded and everything sorted into rough piles of boxes.
Including multiple toy deliveries we have received at EF in person.

Getting operational

Today we shipped the first few orders and did the yearly post-EF inventory count on the few boxes these orders touched.
We still haven’t started sorting our rummage bin of discounted toys apart by manufacturer
to compare against the records of toys sold.
All of this will take a while to sort out.

Slow website

During EF we had problem due to badly written AI bot scraping out website and getting lost in the many way to filter and sort search results.
We still can not block them but managed to make the website a bit faster.
There is a way to give such bots more of a hint to not go places but that will require plugins of the shop system to be modified. Nothing we can do in an evening.

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Neotori restocked

A new delivery by Neotori (English / German) has arrived.
All toys are back in stock.

(Yes, postings in the category „Disturbing Dildo Deliveries“ are basically copy&pasted.
There is just nothing original to write about such a thing but many people are waiting
for toys of a specific manufacturer to come in, so it’s important we post these.)

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20 Years of YiffyToys!!!

With everyone looking at the Eurofurence 30 celebration, we also have an anniversary.
Remember when we turned 18 just 2 years ago?
That’s right. As of this year YiffyToys is 20 years old.
We’re not a teenager any more.

The Past

Originally we sold a few US-made toys of FurryStyle in the European market.
15 years these are made for us in Europe and we have grown to 21 manufacturers.
We wrote down the major milestones in our 18th birthday posting.

The Present

With Inflation raising the prices, the climate making small scale toy making difficult and an orange US president making exchange rates and tariffs unpredictable, this is not the big celebration we where hoping for. We are struggling just like everyone else.

Nevertheless, make sure to visit our tables in the EF Dealers Den and grab some of our FREE CANDY!

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New manufacturer with inflatable canine dildos and sheat

History

We started YiffyToys early in 2006.
During Christmas 2007 we got word of new shop trying to use the same name.
Refusing a notice to not start out with the same name as us escalated and was ultimately ended by our registered trademark being earlier and a WIPO tribunal deciding in our favour.

19 and a half years later that shop was acquired by a company that has build a lot of trust with us.
As such we have added them as our 21st manufacturer.

Toys

Starting out with 3 toys:

Wiley Lee Ferrel
A canine sleeve with front hole featuring a different attachment mechanism to our existing ones.

Kadahar (Small and Large)

We already had inflatable canines made by Elypse Art in the past but she does not have the capacity to supply us anymore.

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A delivery by Exotic Erotics just arrived

The delivery, that we told you was on it’s way, has arrived.

Stock status

All Exotic Erotics (English/German) models, are now in stock.

Custom toys

We do offer custom toys to be included in the next order.
Please contact us early and we’ll create a custom product for you to order as soon as the next shipment leaves the factory and we place our own restock order.

(Yes, postings in the category „Disturbing Dildo Deliveries“ are basically copy&pasted.
There is just nothing original to write about such a thing but many people are waiting
for toys of a specific manufacturer to come in, so it’s important we post these.)

This announcement in:

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Unexpected new delivery by Twin Tails toys on it’s way

A new delivery by Twin Tails is on it’s way.
Sadly too late to make it in time for Eurofurence
You can track it here.

(Yes, postings in the category „Disturbing Dildo Deliveries“ are basically copy&pasted.
There is just nothing original to write about such a thing but many people are waiting
for toys of a specific manufacturer to come in, so it’s important we post these.)

This announcement in:

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EF30 delivery of Sidewinder toys on it’s way

A new delivery of Dildos by Sidewinder Creations (English / German).

We expect it to arrive in a few business days.

It does include custom made toys that can be configured and ordered directly in the YiffyToys web shop.
You can track the delivery here.

(Yes, postings in the category „Disturbing Dildo Deliveries“ are basically copy&pasted.
There is just nothing original to write about such a thing but many people are waiting
for toys of a specific manufacturer to come in, so it’s important we post these.)

This announcement in: