What are the potential consequences of exceeding the traffic limit on a PHP website?

Exceeding the traffic limit on a PHP website can lead to server overload, slow loading times, and potential downtime. To solve this issue, you can implement rate limiting to restrict the number of requests a user can make within a certain time frame.

// Implementing rate limiting in PHP

$limit = 100; // Set the limit to 100 requests
$timespan = 60; // Set the timespan to 60 seconds

$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']; // Get the user's IP address

$key = 'rate_limit_' . $ip;
$count = apcu_fetch($key);

if ($count === false) {
    $count = 1;
    apcu_add($key, $count, $timespan);
} else {
    $count++;
    apcu_store($key, $count, $timespan);
}

if ($count > $limit) {
    http_response_code(429); // Return 429 Too Many Requests status code
    exit('Rate limit exceeded. Please try again later.');
}

// Proceed with the rest of your code