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My SMF is getting over-traffic !!!

Started by GleamPlay.com, August 16, 2013, 06:05:26 AM

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GleamPlay.com

I just started using SMF for about 2 months and i don't know why my forum reaches 5GB traffic very fast.

I use a free host, the host offers 5GB traffic per month and they will be reset after 1 month.

My SMF don't really have much members, maybe about 2-7 members and 10 posts per day, but the traffic is getting very high.

Anything I can do to reduce the traffic? Please help :)

My SMF link: gleam.co.nf
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

kat



You need to ask your host what this traffic is, exactly.

It could just be bots/spiders and things, like that.

But, until we know what it is, we can't make any suggestions, I'm afraid.

Illori

if the traffic is due to search engines it is possible to identify some of them directly through smf.

admin -> core features enable search engine tracking and save the page, then go to search engines in the admin panel then settings make sure the tracking level is at some value higher then disabled and save the page

once the search engines crawl your forum you can view them on the stats page on search engines.

if you find one crawling too much you can try to limit the spider in robots.txt.

if the hits are real people/guests nothing you can do to stop those really.

GleamPlay.com

#3
Quote from: Illori on August 16, 2013, 06:44:24 AM

admin -> core features enable search engine tracking and save the page, then go to search engines in the admin panel then settings make sure the tracking level is at some value higher then disabled and save the page

once the search engines crawl your forum you can view them on the stats page on search engines.
I have disabled the search engine and on the stats page, there are no bots, but my traffic is still getting high :( its about 200-400MB per day and 5GB is my limit

Also in my SMF, there are many guest browsing but i don't know why. There are like 9 guest and 1 user everytime I see. Is there any way to remove those unwanted guest? Because I believe they are not real people :(
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Storman™

Seems a bit high to me, would have though at least half that.

Try something like CrawlTrack and monitor your traffic for a while.

It will give you an indication of whats going on  ;)

GleamPlay.com

1) I installed CrawlTrack to my website, what should I do to get it working because it keep saying 0 visitor and 0 for anything, but there are some visitors. Do I need to put some code in my pages or?

2) Also, is there any ways to completely block all bots and guests?

3) I found a feature to disable all guest in the SMF, but it's saying "You don't have permission, please register to..." Is there any way to edit that page, or make it sound more "friendly" like "Sigh up for free!"?

Thanks for spending your time to help me :)
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Storman™

QuoteI installed CrawlTrack to my website, what should I do to get it working because it keep saying 0 visitor and 0 for anything, but there are some visitors. Do I need to put some code in my pages or?

Sounds like its not completely installed, have you installed the tags ? Might be best to read the documentation and raise any queries on the CrawlTrack forum:

http://www.crawltrack.net/documentation.php

http://www.crawltrack.net/doccms.php

GleamPlay.com

Thank you very much :)

now I see 3 google bot visit in 1 hour, how to disable them?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Tony Reid

How do you know that its not someone hot linking your site? Maybe you need to take a look at your sites logs.

I seriously doubt google is causing that drain. Sign up to googles webmaster tools, and you can see the crawl stats in there - including how much they are downloading from your site.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/

Tony Reid

GleamPlay.com

I checked the Dashboard and I found there are 3 crawlers (Baidu, Google and Yandex) with 34 visits and 2 page view.
and real visitors are 9 visitors, 98 page views.

1) Is it maybe my free web host provide too less space or?

2) Also, is there any ways to completely block all bots and guests?

3) I found a feature to disable all guest in the SMF, but it's saying "You don't have permission, please register to..." Is there any way to edit that page, or make it sound more "friendly" like "Sign up for free!"?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Arantor

1. Free web hosts are notorious for being limited. It's quite simple: you're a burden to them. They're paying money to keep the server running and you're not paying them for it. Consequently they're really not going to take too kindly to busy sites.

2. You can disable guests from being on the site (which will keep guests off too) as you seem to have found.

3. It's not exactly meant to be friendly. While you could edit it, the reality is that it'll still put people off and depending on your forum's purpose, keeping out visitors (and search engines) might just kill it entirely...

GleamPlay.com

Thanks Arantor :)

Will disable guest/bot reduce the traffic?

And is there a way to change the words in the guest login section?

My SMF is using Simple Portal, is there a way to include the Simple Portal Blocks in that page too?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Arantor

Disabling guests and bots may or may not reduce the traffic significantly.

Changing the words in the guest login section is a code change.

I have no idea whether you can include SP blocks in it. That said, if you declare the blocks as showing up on action=login you should be able to do that (see the SP site for further information if needed)

GleamPlay.com

Thanks :)

Also, is 9 visitors, 98 page views normal? 1 person view 10 pages?
and will that cause many traffic?

How to change code in guest login section?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Arantor

That's unusual... and I'm not sure that keeping guests out will fix it! I don't want to give you the code because I'm pretty sure it won't actually solve your problem.

The guest login page is not 'bandwidth free', you know, it still requires almost as much work and bandwidth as a regular page to generate. Meaning that if you're limited by bandwidth you're still going to be limited pretty quickly.

Seems to me the problem is that you're using a really bad host.

GleamPlay.com

umm :(

I am actually using co.nf now and I tried 000webhost.com and neq3.com before.
But 000webhost and neq3 got a white screen of death in Installing Mod page.

Do you have any good free host suggestions? or I must pay in order to get a good host?

000webhost and neq3 got 50GB traffic but white screen of death
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Arantor

You won't get something good for nothing. Remember: when you're using a free host, you're actually costing them money.

You get what you pay for.

GleamPlay.com

so no free hosting is good?
why do they offer free hosting if I am only a burden to them :(

Any "Okay" web hosting?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

GleamPlay.com

OMG!!! its 4.4/5GB now and I checked Dashboard, there is 5visitor and 101 page view...

Should I set the forum to maintainance mode?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

GleamPlay.com

Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Tony Reid

Contact your host - something is not right, and they will be able to see from the logs.
Tony Reid

Storman™

QuoteOMG!!! its 4.4/5GB now and I checked Dashboard, there is 5visitor and 101 page view...

That does not make sense.   ???

What period is that 4.4/5GB over, is it since the beginning of the month ?

Do you have any large files or images on the site that maybe people are downloading ? Thats all I can think of.

Quotewhy do they offer free hosting if I am only a burden to them

They tempt you with free hosting and then offer you premium hosting (at a cost) when you find out that the available resources are insufficient. As a business model it invariably works as people like something for nothing but unsuspecting clients soon realise that "nothing is free".

GleamPlay.com

It is 0/5GB on  2nd August, and now its already 4.4 :(
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

GleamPlay.com

and i dont have any big size images or files for people to download :(
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Storman™

As previously mentioned ask your host for the details.

GleamPlay.com

ok, here is the host's reply :( :

Hello Leon Yip,

Thank you for contacting us.

Please keep in mind that the traffic of 5GB includes communication between the MySQL database and your PHP scripts, your uploads and available to your visitors downloads, site resolving and therefore your website traffic is not accumulated only by your websites' visitors. In order to resolve this problem, you can optimize your site's scripts or consider upgrading to any of our paid hosting plans.

Feel free to reopen this ticket in case you have more questions or you need further assistance. Thank you for choosing our services.

Best Regards,
Dedicated Support Team
Supportindeed.com
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Tony Reid

Tony Reid

GleamPlay.com

Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Arantor

You should generally avoid free hosts because they don't owe you anything whatsoever. Remember you're costing them money when you use their services...

Kindred

Wow... really?   Communication between your php webserver and their mySQL server is counted against your data limit?

Holy ****

leave.
leave now
don't look back.
(don't blink)
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Arantor

And yes, as suspected, hiding the forum from guests won't fix anything at all...

GleamPlay.com

Is there any ok free host, I don't need a good one :(

or I must pay for a host? Because my parents don't really let me to pay for a expensive one.
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Tony Reid

There are free hosts out there, you just have to find a semi-decent one. Your current website should not cause more than 50mb of bandwidth a month - your current host is messing with the figures to make it look like you are using much more than you actually are.

Whilst not free, starting with something for $2 a month from a reputable company like http://www.rshosting.com/web-hosting/ would get you off to a good start.

If your website idea is good enough then it will be able to cover minimal costs such as that. You just need to have the right idea and approach.

The community building board here is a good place to start learning.

Curious - What is your website about?
Tony Reid

GleamPlay.com

Is there any free webhost suggestions? :)

Also, RShosting provide only 500MB for the Starter plan, is that enough?

How to cover the cost?

Oh, I am just a teenager, and my website is about gaming :)
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Tony Reid

500mb is the disk space - not the bandwidth.

If I were starting a site about Gaming - I'd probably start with something like a free wordpress blog that reviews games (both console and mobile), and then once followers have built up - expand into using a forum like SMF. Something like toucharcade springs to mind as an example.

You can earn money through advertising banners etc to pay for hosting. But if starting out with a blog, then you can do it for free.
Tony Reid

GleamPlay.com

thanks :)
but how to look for ppl to put advertisement in my website?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Tony Reid

Make good content and they will find you, or use a service like adsense.
Tony Reid

GleamPlay.com

how to get adsense?

about how many visitors in website so they will find me?

will they find me even if mine is free hosting?
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Tony Reid

Quote from: leonyipa on August 20, 2013, 05:50:58 AM
how to get adsense?

Google adsense - its all there.

Quote
about how many visitors in website so they will find me?

I have no idea what you are asking.
Quote
will they find me even if mine is free hosting?

Yes.

This is now way off topic, and if you need further assistance, then feel free to post in the community building boards as there are lots of people there who can advise.
Tony Reid

GleamPlay.com

I mean when will people start finding me to put their advertisement, like when will my website be "big" enough? Like how many active visitors per month? Because I don't think people will put advertisements on my website as there are so less members atm :(
Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

Irisado

You might find this useful.

Note that, as Tony says, a lot of the questions you're now asking are no longer support questions, so they don't belong here.  Building Your Community and other Forum Advice is the board to post in if you want help with how to build your community, rather than technical assistance.
Soñando con una playa donde brilla el sol, un arco iris ilumina el cielo, y el mar espejea iridescentemente

GleamPlay.com

Gleam - http://gleamplay.com
The SMF to have fun, meet new friends and play games!

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