Are You Committing "Bandwidth Theft"?
What is Bandwidth Theft?
Bandwidth is a measure of data sent through an Internet connection. Many ISPs limit the amount of bandwidth that a site can use. For example, the Discover IT Standard Unix Hosting Plan allows 5 GB of data per month to be transferred to or from your site. When this bandwidth is exceeded you will be charged for the excess bandwidth used.
Every time you upload a file, surf a Web Site or download files, pages or images, you are using bandwidth. Most Web Sites do not come anywhere near exceeding their bandwidth limit. Our limit is quite generous.
However, what if someone is stealing your bandwidth? Anyone can create a link on their Web Site to a file (image or download file) on yours. Every time someone visits that site, they are using your bandwidth to download your file from their site.
For example, say someone is linking to a 50 KB image on your site and the Web Site using that image is displaying it 100 times a day. They are using 5 MB of your bandwidth per day or more than 150 MB per month! The problem is compounded if someone links to multi-megabyte download files such as sound or movie files, presentation files or demonstration software, etc. You could easily overrun your monthly bandwidth quota and be charged accordingly.
A Web Site owner was recently charged more than £3000 in excess bandwidth charges for a £15 per month hosting plan!
How to Combat Bandwidth Theft?
If you suspect that your site is being targeted, there are several things you can do:
- Check the log files from your site and trace the referrer in the log to the referring Web Site. Go to the offending web page and if you find your files displayed on that page, check the HTML source to find out where the files are hosted. If they point to your site, it means they are using your bandwidth. Contact the owners and ask them to stop.
- If this fails and they are linking to an image on your site, create a new compressed image with a much smaller file size. This will reduce the amount of "stolen" bandwidth.
- If you want to get their attention, why not replace the image with another of the same name? Create the new image with a message that they are committing bandwidth theft! However, make sure that you do not use this image on any pages in your own web site.
- There are ways of preventing bandwidth theft using .htaccess for Unix servers or programmatically using PHP or ASP. Contact us if you need help with this.
- Finally, there are software solutions that you can purchase such as ColdLink Bandwidth Protection Software - see www.coldlink.com for details.
In Summary:
- Be aware of bandwidth theft.
- Take action if you are targeted.
- Make sure that your ISP warns you when you are close to your bandwidth limit (as with all Discover IT hosting plans).
- NEVER steal bandwidth yourself.
Don't be put off providing links to other sites. All the above refer to "content" links and not "navigation" links that lead to other sites. The Internet is a global network and links from site to site are the essential ingredient. Don't let the crime of bandwidth theft spoil the spirit of the Internet.