Forum Moderators: phranque
Woke up this morning to find my business web site had been shut down from my host 123-Reg, because they claim I've exceeded my monthly bandwidth.
This is the first time I've encountered bandwidth problems because previously my site was hosted by my ISP at Blueyonder. Same amount of visitors per week, same files, but Blueyonder offered 30MB space, 123-Reg offered 250MB, so I foolishly paid Ģ58 for a years hosting thinking everything would be taken care of. Then the bandwidth problem came up via an e-mail from customer support. I wrote back asking what I needed to do, they never replied. First I hear from them is when they cut me off today.
123-Reg gave me 1000MB Bandwidth per month and they claim I'm exceeding this. (Can't believe I overlooked something like this.) I just called Blueyonder and they tell me that although they only offer 30MB there isn't any bandwidth limit, except when hits and downloads get excessive.
So effectively I don't have any service right now and I'm not sure what to do. Can't upload all my files to Blueyonder because it was personal webspace and I don't want their name appearing in the address bar (especially as I've just set up a Worldpay account for credit cards). They will however host my site via a business service with no bandwidth limit with 50MB space at Ģ180 ($288 per year). Is this good - bad - indifferent?
I'd appreciate any suggestions on what I should do because I've got to get this site back up in the next 24 hours or I'm in deep...
Anyway call 123.reg (if support won't help, try calling sales). keep calling them until you get an answer. Tell them you don't understand how it could be so high and ask if they have a breakdown of the bandwidth - you may see a sudden leap and that could suggest someone pinching your files.
In the meantime, find another host. No host should cut you off for exceeding bandwith without at least giving you a warning (e.g. it's only the 5th of the months and you've already used your bandwidth). Most hosts have "burstable" bandwidth, which means you can exceed your limit and can pay leter.
PS on the other hand, be very wary of hosts who offer "unlimited bandwidth" though. They always have hidden terms and conditions and may also cut your site for trivial reasons. After all, they have to pay bandwidth charges. sticky me for a long rant with details if you like.
I contacted 123 Reg and they gave me feedback. They claim I've had 93,200 hits since 2nd April! That's insane. I was only getting 200 hits per week before then.
The only difference I made to the site is that I put up a series of PDF instruction manuals for rare movie cameras, one of which is 11MB in size. Okay, perhaps this was causing most of the problem but there is no WAY 93000 people would want an esoteric bunch of manuals like that. They're not listed on the search engines and it's an obscure page on my site.
I'd be more than welcoming to that many hits, but I haven't seen any increase in e-mails or sales as a result. Not a thing!
How could I possibly get that many hits? I hate to admit it, but I don't even know how to check the logs because 123 Reg's customer information is so appalling. It's a 50 pence a minute helpline and they are closed for the weekend.
I've just removed all the manuals and I had to pay another $10 on their site just to get 200 MB more of data transfer. My web site is up and I will happily post the link here if anyone thinks they can help. But if there is something else wrong, that 200MB may be exceeded by the weekend. Can anyone suggest how I can find out what on earth is going on?
When you FTP into your site do you see a folder called "logs" - it will contain the raw data logs (but only 3 days probably) - you can download them and then analyse them with Webalyser (if its an Apache server) or a free trial of eg. Webtrends.
If there's no logs folder then there may not be anything you can do.
BTW "hits" means total number of files accessed, including image files, page files etc. It doesn't mean the number of unique users.
Like I say, move to another webhost, preferably one that supplies stats!
Sincerely,
Nuno
