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A Bandwidth Problem


mickh

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For the last couple of months I've been getting an automatic message that I'm at 80% users of my bandwidth. I looked back over the last year or so and see that my usage has been going up. I have used on average about 6 gb per month. The last two months it's been 19 gb. I do use a lot of images.

 

Tech support suggested I turn on Hotlink (which I have now done).

 

Looking around using cPanel you might think I was running Google with all the HITS.

 

I noticed I had something called myspace.com looking for halloween02.jpg which I had used last year (see the attachment).

 

Has anyone else had this problem and what did you do to fix it.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Mickhpost-7812-1131233883_thumb.jpg

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Welcome to the forums, Mickh! :thumbup1:

 

For this particular issue (people linking to your images on other web sites), hotlink protection is indeed the best way to stop those other sites from soaking up your bandwidth.

 

myspace.com appears to be a community of personal sites somewhat like LiveJournal. The different 'friendID' parameters in the referer links are to different myspace.com pages. In the screenshot you posted, there were 7 hits from 7 different myspace.com sites in the space of 5 seconds. I'd say you're on the right track. ;)

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Welcome to the forums, Mickh! :thumbup1:

 

For this particular issue (people linking to your images on other web sites), hotlink protection is indeed the best way to stop those other sites from soaking up your bandwidth.

 

myspace.com appears to be a community of personal sites somewhat like LiveJournal. The different 'friendID' parameters in the referer links are to different myspace.com pages. In the screenshot you posted, there were 7 hits from 7 different myspace.com sites in the space of 5 seconds. I'd say you're on the right track. ;)

 

Well I did enable the Hotlink and then within minutes got two automatic email saying I went over the top. Now I'm locked out.

 

Man I sure didn't know I was that popular how come I'm still broke ;).

 

I have been working with Tech support. But I'm not sure I like the solution. . . adding more bandwidth just seems to be like giving a drowning man a glass of water, doesn't solve the problem.

 

mickh

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I agree that adding bandwidth would not be much of a solution, if it were just going to be used up by the hotlinkers. In this case, since you've enabled hotlink protection, hopefully that would no longer be a problem, and adding bandwidth to your site would allow you and your legitimate visitors access back into your site.

 

Considering that this is only the 5th of the month, and you've already used up your bandwidth allocation (20GB?), I do think that an analysis of your server logs would be in order to see where it all went.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I had a similiar problem with a sound file on my site. I noticed "lone" hits to this sound file in my recent visitors link in cpanel. I was able to visit the myspace.com pages that had the link, and viewing the source, I noticed some sort of work around in the link that got past my hotlink protection. I think the link gets past it opening a new window or something like that. I think the quickest solution is to change the name of the image - sound file that they are linking too. You will get tons of error messages, but at least they aren't taking your bandwidth.

 

What I did in my situation, was I removed the sound file and then I investigated the guy who was posting my sound file in each and every one of his myspace.com replies. He had a photobucket account, and I emailed him through that. I wrote him a friendly email explaining how I had to play extra for my bandwidth (telling a small white lie since I actually caught the problem early) and he actually wrote me back and apologized and said he would stop posting links to my sound file. ha! Turns out he was just a clueless teen and not a scary hacker teen.

 

So my problem is solved. Bandwidth saved!

 

:)

 

Still, I have to wonder how myspace is getting past my hotlink protection. Perhaps they even instruct their users how to link to images, since this guy didn't appear to be particularly web savvy. I wish there was some way to just totally block links coming in from that particular blogger service. I don't like myspace.com - I think this is a bigger problem than most of us realize.

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