Dont know if l am posting this in the right section but my bandwidth l am using has suddenly shot up !! I was wondering why?
Thanks

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Wendy xx

www.wendysaffordableweddings.co.uk

It's from all the hits on your sig from this forum

Have a look at your web stats, that'll tell you where the bandwidth is going. It's likely to be one of three things

1. You are getting a lot more visitors.
2. You're being hit by aggressive bots
3. You've uploaded some large file size images that consume a lot of bandwidth when downloaded.

The first one is the one you want, the second one can be good or bad depending on which bots are visiting, and the last one is bad and means you will have to optimise some of your images, Either way, if you check your web stats, the answer will be there.

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Lawrence

My images l have been making sure they are under 400 x 400 but thanks for that. Are the "direct hits" on my site me checking who's online etc or by another source?
Thanks

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Wendy xx

www.wendysaffordableweddings.co.uk

It's not the dimensions of the image that count, it's the size of the file that matters i.e. how many KB.

Direct hits are usually those that are typed into the address bar, or clicked from someone's favourites list.

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Lawrence

It's your images that are eating up the bandwidth. You have some huge thumbnails on your homepage.

One is 100 X 65px and is 75KB, this should only be about 4 or 5KB, so its using 15 times as much bandwidth as it should. Not only does it use excessive bandwidth, it also makes the page very slow for anyone on a slow connection.

This problem was discussed on this thread help with images?

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Lawrence

Ok thanks for that, l have more on the "direct hits" than anything else.

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Wendy xx

www.wendysaffordableweddings.co.uk

The pictures on the front page were hosted else where l have removed them and bandwidth hasnt changed.
Sorry if l sound a dummy its just puzzled me the sudden jump up

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Wendy xx

www.wendysaffordableweddings.co.uk

The one's you removed weren't a problem at all and wouldn't have been even if they were hosted on the server as they were quite small. It's the thumbnails below them that are causing the problem, they are hosted on your server and are massive. e.g.

http://www.wendysaffordableweddings....akewebsite.jpg

You need to create smaller images for your thumbnails.

The images you removed can safely be put back because they weren't causing a problem though it's best to host them on the same server as the rest of the site.

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Lawrence

Hopefully l have made a bit of difference tonight some large/huge pic have been removed thanks

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Wendy xx

www.wendysaffordableweddings.co.uk

There's no need to remove any images, you just need to optimise the ones you've got and create thumbnail images that are the same size as the displayed thumbnails. If you open the images in a graphics application you can set the jpeg quality when saving them. You can often set this at 60% if not lower with no noticeable deterioration in image quality which would reduce the file size immensely.

The best way to reduce the bandwidth is to use three different images small, medium and large. On this thread help with images? you'll find a link to a Zen tutorial explaining how to add multiple images to your products.

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Lawrence