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.

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.

[thedancingdaisy]

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...oadite mid=29

[bristweb]

Originally Posted by 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.

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