Sherry
10-27-2008, 09:09 AM
Hi gals,
I am once again beginning to receive email messages from our server that we are at 85% of our alloted bandwidth consumption. Once we reach 100% this means that our site will go offline until the beginning of the next month.
We've been running smoothly for over two years with no problems and, all of a sudden, have been experiencing website time outs and huge bandwidth consumption. I am not sure why this is happening but I will be investigating the source of the problem and, if necessary, will make changes to alleviate the strain on our server.
I want to remind everyone that Shuggy has set up an emergency Yahoo group so that if our website does go offline you can stay informed about what is taking place. You can find the website here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shackieupdates/
I'll keep you all updated on this issue.
Sherry
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***UPDATE***
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Hi Ladies,
I have spent most of the day investigating the source of our bandwidth consumption. The good news is that it isn't anything our Shack members are doing (ie. uploading photos to the gallery or adding images to your posts, or having multiple PMs stored).
Most of our bandwidth, believe it or not, is being used up by spiders, robots, and crawlers. What on earth is that you ask? Well, A spider, robot, or crawler is a program that follows, or "crawls", links throughout the internet, grabbing content from sites and adding it to search engine indexes. Yahoo is the biggest culprit and is sending out hundreds of spiders to our website at one time. They have hit our website 142,742 times in the past month and have used up 5.57 gig of our bandwidth! Second in line is Google and they have used up 3.57 gig.
Along with the pesky spiders, guests who visit The Stamp Shack website are also using up bandwidth. They spend time browsing our gallery and reading the messages on the board but don't care to register for an account. We sometimes have 50-100 guests visiting at one time so, as you can imagine, this is eating up a tremendous amount of bandwidth.
In light of this discovery, I have implemented a few changes to the website.
1. I have installed a program that will limit the amount of spiders/bots crawling our website AND will limit what links they actually grab. Unfortunately, it can take up to three weeks before this takes effect.
2. Guests are no longer permitted to view the content of our website. If they wish to view the gallery or the message board, they must register for a basic account. I really hate doing this but I cannot allow our website to go offline each and every month in order to accomodate guest viewing.
3. For this month only, I have disabled a few non-essential features (such as profile messages, member albums, and the friends list) in hopes that we can make it through the rest of the month without going offline. These features will be restored on November 1st.
So many people have emailed me today with suggestions on how we might conserve bandwidth and I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your concern. You're all so sweet! Some people have suggested that we have our bandwidth limit increased but, as of right now, I'm not willing to do that. We are currently forking over $150 per month for our dedicated server and I really am not comfortable paying any more than that.
Please go about your normal Shack activities. I think that by initiating the changes outlined above we should see a decrease in bandwidth consumption over the next few weeks. Of course, it doesn't help us out this month as we are already at 90% of our quota. Remember, if we do go offline, please check in with Angie's Yahoo Group for information and updates.
Thanks so much for your concern and your understanding!! You really are a great bunch of gals :)
I am once again beginning to receive email messages from our server that we are at 85% of our alloted bandwidth consumption. Once we reach 100% this means that our site will go offline until the beginning of the next month.
We've been running smoothly for over two years with no problems and, all of a sudden, have been experiencing website time outs and huge bandwidth consumption. I am not sure why this is happening but I will be investigating the source of the problem and, if necessary, will make changes to alleviate the strain on our server.
I want to remind everyone that Shuggy has set up an emergency Yahoo group so that if our website does go offline you can stay informed about what is taking place. You can find the website here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shackieupdates/
I'll keep you all updated on this issue.
Sherry
************************************************** ************************************************** ******************************
***UPDATE***
************************************************** ************************************************** ******************************
Hi Ladies,
I have spent most of the day investigating the source of our bandwidth consumption. The good news is that it isn't anything our Shack members are doing (ie. uploading photos to the gallery or adding images to your posts, or having multiple PMs stored).
Most of our bandwidth, believe it or not, is being used up by spiders, robots, and crawlers. What on earth is that you ask? Well, A spider, robot, or crawler is a program that follows, or "crawls", links throughout the internet, grabbing content from sites and adding it to search engine indexes. Yahoo is the biggest culprit and is sending out hundreds of spiders to our website at one time. They have hit our website 142,742 times in the past month and have used up 5.57 gig of our bandwidth! Second in line is Google and they have used up 3.57 gig.
Along with the pesky spiders, guests who visit The Stamp Shack website are also using up bandwidth. They spend time browsing our gallery and reading the messages on the board but don't care to register for an account. We sometimes have 50-100 guests visiting at one time so, as you can imagine, this is eating up a tremendous amount of bandwidth.
In light of this discovery, I have implemented a few changes to the website.
1. I have installed a program that will limit the amount of spiders/bots crawling our website AND will limit what links they actually grab. Unfortunately, it can take up to three weeks before this takes effect.
2. Guests are no longer permitted to view the content of our website. If they wish to view the gallery or the message board, they must register for a basic account. I really hate doing this but I cannot allow our website to go offline each and every month in order to accomodate guest viewing.
3. For this month only, I have disabled a few non-essential features (such as profile messages, member albums, and the friends list) in hopes that we can make it through the rest of the month without going offline. These features will be restored on November 1st.
So many people have emailed me today with suggestions on how we might conserve bandwidth and I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your concern. You're all so sweet! Some people have suggested that we have our bandwidth limit increased but, as of right now, I'm not willing to do that. We are currently forking over $150 per month for our dedicated server and I really am not comfortable paying any more than that.
Please go about your normal Shack activities. I think that by initiating the changes outlined above we should see a decrease in bandwidth consumption over the next few weeks. Of course, it doesn't help us out this month as we are already at 90% of our quota. Remember, if we do go offline, please check in with Angie's Yahoo Group for information and updates.
Thanks so much for your concern and your understanding!! You really are a great bunch of gals :)