High Traffic - Shutting down the downloads ?

Newsy

I'm close to my monthly bandwidth limit and have identified a couple of images that are responsible for most of the traffic.

In trying to stem the flood, I've edited the following in the Smugmug gallery options.

1. originals: NO - can people view your Original full-size photos?

2. ext. links: NO - allow external links (eBay, forums, etc)?

3. easy sharing: NO - do you want the 'share photo: links, forums, blogs' link?


In testing,

#1... prevents an image in an existing forum post/link from being displayed.

#2... seems to have no effect on an existing link in a forum post or even when creating a new post in a forum

#3... just seems to take away the link button & information on the smugmug page


I've read here that another way to shut down bandwidth is to make a copy and delete the original. Looks like I may have to do that.

Any other ideas?

Newsy http://newsy.smugmug.com

Mike Lane

First off hi and welcome to dgrin. Congratulations on being the 10,000th member of the dgrin community.

Newsy wrote:

#1... prevents an image in an existing forum post/link from being displayed.

This option prevents an original size image from being displayed. If your forum or blog post links to any other size it will be seen just fine.

Newsy wrote:

#2... seems to have no effect on an existing link in a forum post or even when creating a new post in a forum

If you clear your browser's cache you will no longer be able to see the image.

Newsy wrote:

#3... just seems to take away the link button & information on the smugmug page

That is exactly what it does.

Newsy wrote:

I've read here that another way to shut down bandwidth is to make a copy and delete the original. Looks like I may have to do that.

That would make it so none of the various sizes of linked versions of the image are available on any forums or anywhere else on the net.

Newsy wrote:

Any other ideas?

I'd say go for option 1 and 2 or upgrade to pro since the bandwidth is unlimited

Baldy

Hi Newsy,

Nice photos on your site! I can never see too many airshow pics.

I reset your bandwidth so it's like starting over this month.

All the best,
Chris

Mike Lane

heh... There's always that

flyingdutchie

Newsy wrote:

I'm close to my monthly bandwidth limit and have identified a couple of images that are responsible for most of the traffic.

In trying to stem the flood, I've edited the following in the Smugmug gallery options.

1. originals: NO - can people view your Original full-size photos?

2. ext. links: NO - allow external links (eBay, forums, etc)?

3. easy sharing: NO - do you want the 'share photo: links, forums, blogs' link?


In testing,

#1... prevents an image in an existing forum post/link from being displayed.

#2... seems to have no effect on an existing link in a forum post or even when creating a new post in a forum

#3... just seems to take away the link button & information on the smugmug page


I've read here that another way to shut down bandwidth is to make a copy and delete the original. Looks like I may have to do that.

Any other ideas?

Newsy http://newsy.smugmug.com

In the future, if someone still manages to directly link to an image of yours causing a lot of bandwidth consumption, upload that pic again (don't replace, upload as a new one) and delete the original. This will cause the link (on the offender's web-site) to be broken.

dmc

flyingdutchie wrote:

In the future, if someone still manages to directly link to an image of yours causing a lot of bandwidth consumption, upload that pic again (don't replace, upload as a new one) and delete the original. This will cause the link (on the offender's web-site) to be broken.

wouldn't breaking the link be the point? That is exacly what I do, ON purpose... how dare someone link my pics on some site

redcrown

When Smugmug receives a request for an invalid URL link, it displays the users home page, with no error message.

How big is your home page? Many I've seen are bigger (more bandwidth) than a single image page. So breaking a hot link may actually be costing you more bandwidth.

Personally, I'd prefer Smugmug to return a "page not found" 404 error, or better yet, let us set a custom page not found link so we can decide what to do with invalid links. That feature is common on most web hosting sites.

flyingdutchie

redcrown wrote:

When Smugmug receives a request for an invalid URL link, it displays the users home page, with no error message.

How big is your home page? Many I've seen are bigger (more bandwidth) than a single image page. So breaking a hot link may actually be costing you more bandwidth.

Personally, I'd prefer Smugmug to return a "page not found" 404 error, or better yet, let us set a custom page not found link so we can decide what to do with invalid links. That feature is common on most web hosting sites.

That's not true if the link is to an image.
E.g This is a valid link to one of my images:
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/47077472-M.jpg

Now change the URL (the image-id 47077472) a little bit:
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/997077472-M.jpg

As you can see, the Photo Not Found picture is shown.
-- Anton.

dmc

flyingdutchie wrote:

That's not true...
-- Anton.

congrats on your 1000th post!

redcrown

I stand corrected, and confused.
Here's a valid link to my site:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg

and the same link, made invalid in the jpeg name:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85999-Th.jpg

and the same link made invalid in the folder name:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/phoos/85952499-Th.jpg

For me, the link with invalid jpeg name returns a blank page in IE and Firefox. No "photo not found", no other error, just blank white. Tested some other sites and got same result.

The link with invalid folder name goes to the home page, no error.

So why does yours show "photo not found"? Is it because it's in the smugmug root directory?

flyingdutchie

redcrown wrote:

I stand corrected, and confused.
Here's a valid link to my site:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg

and the same link, made invalid in the jpeg name:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85999-Th.jpg

and the same link made invalid in the folder name:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/phoos/85952499-Th.jpg

For me, the link with invalid jpeg name returns a blank page in IE and Firefox. No "photo not found", no other error, just blank white. Tested some other sites and got same result.

The link with invalid folder name goes to the home page, no error.

So why does yours show "photo not found"? Is it because it's in the smugmug root directory?

Say you have a picture that someone has linked to, without your consent. Say it is this link:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg
which is the same as
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg

To thwart this, you will delete this picture (pic# 85952499) and upload the same pic again from your computer. Now, this (new) picture will get a new ID (e.g. 111223454)
The old picture #85952499 is invalid. After this deleting, when you try
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg
or
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg
you will get a 'page not found' page or a 'photo not found' image.

This happens because 85952499 is an invalid ID now.

Just try this, where 111111119 is an invalid id:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/111111119-Th.jpg
or
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/111111119-Th.jpg

It is not that you change the URL to make the image invalid; you keep the URL the same, and you make the image (ID) invalid instead.

(PS: Right now, Smugmug acts up a little... sometimes it gives a Page not Found page, sometimes a Photo not Found image, sometimes just HTTP-error 404 .... i don't know why...)

Newsy

Someone has been linking to my zoo photos.

http://newsy.smugmug.com/gallery/501971/1/19269708

This Lion has had almost 2600 Original size downloads this month which is probably from just the first two weeks after which I disabled Originals. Last month it was also an enormous number. The entire "Seattle Zoo" gallery had 22620 hits in July and so far mtd August has 42740 hits. I found a website in the country of Georgia that has links to several of my photos. Looks like I've managed to stop the original size showing there. Other than that one site, I haven't a clue who is linking to these images.

My Arctic Wolf in my "Zoo" gallery is now going the same way with almost 1200 Original sized downloads to date. I've just disabled the three options discussed above.

http://newsy.smugmug.com/gallery/17303/1/12970162

One thing I wish is that the gallery stats had an option to be sorted by highest bandwidth first to lowest. Then it would be really easy to spot these leeches, not that I mind.... if only I made a penny for every hit. :

.

dmc

flyingdutchie wrote:

Say you have a picture that someone has linked to, without your consent. Say it is this link:
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg
which is the same as
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg

To thwart this, you will delete this picture (pic# 85952499) and upload the same pic again from your computer. Now, this (new) picture will get a new ID (e.g. 111223454)
The old picture #85952499 is invalid. After this deleting, when you try
http://kellyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg
or
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/85952499-Th.jpg
you will get a 'page not found' page or a 'photo not found' image.

This happens because 85952499 is an invalid ID now.

No need to re-upload, just use "Make 2nd copy", then delete the problem photo.

Newsy

dmc wrote:

No need to re-upload, just use "Make 2nd copy", then delete the problem photo.

Btw... thank you fore restting my bandwidth.