Bandwidth Usage

[cekman]

I'm just starting my 2nd month on 3d cart and I'm using the basic package. I get 3GB per month for bandwidth.

I knew I would eventually have to upgrade - but thought it would be due to the need for more database space.

But I'm already in the yellow for my bandwidth usage. :confused:

I'm really surprised by this. I only get an average of 3-4 orders a day - sometimes no orders. I do have a lot of products - but I try to keep my pictures all in the 40-50kb size with the thumbnails under 10kb.

I'm wondering if someone is 'hacking' my site (probably the wrong word) - or doing something to use my bandwith.

For example yesterday I didn't get ANY orders. My Bandwidth usage was about 1/2 used up. Today - it's far into the yellow.

Suggestions? I'm just very surprised that I will have to upgrade due to this - as my site really is NOT that popular. The way it's going I may have to purchase the Standard Plus package which I think is drastic overkill for me.

Thanks for any input.

[SarahInc]

I believe robots and web crawlers can temporarily use up the bandwidth.

[jhb]

You may also want to check if photos on your site are being hotlinked. This is a common problem that causes bandwidth issues.

[cekman]

How do I know if they are hotlinked?

[jhb]

Do you use some analytics or statistics package? They would show up as referrals such as:

theirdomain.com/theirpage.html 0 100

that means their site sent 100 hits to you but 0 pageviews. In other words they are hotlinking.

[cekman]

I don't use any analytics or statistics packages. however when I have to upgrade then I will get the web stats from 3dcart - will that show me? The only thing I have now is my stats on my Pay per clicks from google, yahoo and MSN - but I don't think I can get domain info from them.

Does anyone think my bandwidth is high - or is this standard?

[jhb]

Google analytics accounts are free and easy to setup with 3dCart. You may want to do this first before you have to pay for bandwidth you are not using.

https://www.onlinesupportweb.com/ind...nloaditemid=29

[bristweb]

I'm just starting my 2nd month on 3d cart and I'm using the basic package. I get 3GB per month for bandwidth.

I knew I would eventually have to upgrade - but thought it would be due to the need for more database space.

But I'm already in the yellow for my bandwidth usage. :confused:

you could be getting leeched...but i doubt it. even if your average visitor only uses 1mb (approx 10 product pages as you describe) for all bandwidth they use in a month, then a basic site can only support 100 visitors per day.

i think the basic package is enough for testing only...plus if you are getting 2-3% conversions (a good conversion ratio for many industries)...time to expand :)

[cekman]

Thanks bristweb. In the last two days I went from yellow to way into the red. I have only had 2 orders and only 3-4 incomplete orders. I will upgrade - but I still think it's odd.

I've never had to pay for bandwidth before - don't like it! :-)

[DaveW]

FWIW - We use much more bandwidth than we did with Monster, but are getting much better search traffic. I don't know if they are related or not, but we are happy. ;)

DaveW

[DanDeLioN]

Hey all, I have issue to with bandwith.. As I know bandwith its like people download (like save pics etc) or I upload pics etc from our web.

But, I heard bandwith is like traffic / people go to our website and will add bandwith. Is that true?

If yes, so the more people come to our website, the more bandwith that we need to pay?

If I want to resize all the images to get less bandwith, do you think worth it, since I have like hundreds or let say thousand pictures?

Thanks for your help :)

[Mark]

one of our sites isn't even recording bandwidth! Guess we'll never need to upgrade! :)

[cekman]

DanDeLion - bandwidth usage is ALL traffic to your site. It can be you uploading images/products, customers browsing, or google scanning your site for indexing.

The biggest culprit is usually images - so if your images are large and you get a lot of views each day - that can dramatically affect your bandwidth.

Have you looked at the STATS reports available to you yet?

[Mark]

does anyone know how the bandwidth is calculated?
It can't be a script in your global footer.
That wouldn't record admin uploads or downloads.

[DanDeLioN]

lol, I got it now, I didn't know that also including browsing. We use google analytics too, and it works, lots of traffic. No wonder our bandwith like really easy to get red bar :D