Using IT contractors as site architects can be a key weapon for firms who want to ensure their webpage doesn't crack under pressure, it is claimed.

Companies who want to ensure they have a resilient website should focus on hardware infrastructure, good software design and monitoring, according to cross-platform web agency Digital Jigsaw.

The comments follow the announcement that world football body Fifa has announced that it has invested in 75 servers in Slough to deal with the 70 million page views an hour it expects during this summer's World Cup.

Fifa's site allows this much traffic because it has been built with this volume of traffic in mind from the outset.

For companies to achieve the same resilience, Digital Jigsaw director Steve King says they need to take a logical approach.

"I always think of high load as getting through a toll bridge at rush hour; the hardware is the number of lanes, your software is your toll system and the traffic cameras are your early warning systems," he explained.