Recently when trying to access my own web site on GeoCities I get an error page stating that my web site has "exceeded it's allocated data transfer" and access to the site will be restored in an hour.

I have used up my entire 15 meg of storage space and I refuse to sign up to pay for more space. Is this just GeoCities' way of irritating me and folks wishing to view my site so I'll step up and pay for it?

It all seems pretty bogus to me. They insist on including those irritating pop up ads on my site, I would think that would be enough. Are there any other free web hosting services out there with 15 or more megs of space available?

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NCOA member #220
ACES member #1670
Team Chevelle #998
YesterYears Chevys #52949
Rich's 1965 Malibu SS Restoration Project Progress Page (http://www.geocities.com/ticklewiggle/)
1:18 scale diecast car Detailing by Scooter (http://www.amhost.com/scooter/)

Rich -
I also use GeoCities for my webpage. Interesting !! 15 Megs, I have 25 Megs, also free. I thought they were all 25 Meg. Anyway, I know that GeoCities has, for the last several days, had server problems. Maybe that's the cause. Every once in a while I have to move some of the files out in order to keep under their limit. I know - this doesn't help much.

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Bob McCormick
69 Malibu project

Bob,
No, that does help some. Maybe it is a temporary situation and they are just trying to protect their bandwidth. My page is pretty graphics intensive (lots of photos).

I'll give it a week or so and see if the same problems continue.

I also guess I could shoot a note off to GeoCities, huh?

Geocities has offered 25meg for free since they started up, but yesterday I was trying to upload some pics, and it wouldn't let me, and wouldn't tell me why.

I wasn't sure how much space I was using, thought I may be pretty close to my 25meg, so I look, AND THEY BROUGHT ME DOWN TO 15!!! I had no more room at all. Ever since they've disallowed direct links to pics, they've been making me really mad. And look how much they want to up your space!!

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70 Impala Sport Coupe (350)
66 Chevelle (I wish, still looking)
http://www.geocities.com/ledsled_26m

Rich, by "exceeded allocated data transfer" they don't mean you have run out of space on your account.

Every time somebody views your page, geocities' server has to send out the page to them, a small amount of data is sent every time, or a lot depending how many pictures you have etc. What that message meant was that the maximum allowable amount of people had viewed your page in the last x amount of time, so they shut your site down temporarily.

Geocities has trouble with people getting temp accounts with them just to serve out warez etc, so this is probably a way for them to make sure people aren't taking advantage of them just for serving out files to large amounts of people. I have encountered this on more than one persons geocities account.

If your concerned about it, try cutting back on how many pictures you have on your site etc.

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Chris Dagenais
'71 Malibu with a home built 454! 12.7@107
"Our balls are bigger :)"
CDE Power! (http://www.71malibu.com)

Just as I thought. Completely unasked, GeoCities sent me the following e-mail. They are simply protecting bandwidth and trying to make some of us suckers pay for the usage. The days of a free lunch are over I guess. They don't seem to understand, this is a HOBBY site not a retail site. $8.95/month seems kind of silly. They can take away my picture linking ability and restrict the bandwidth, I AM getting the site for free other than those annoying pop ups, but they don't need to come up with some cock & bull story to try to convince me to step up and now pay for it because it's now MY fault.

Funny thing too, I've never had this problem in the past. The site has been this large for years and traffic is now slower than it ever has been. I've had less than 12000 hits in just under 3 years! How exactly is that burning up bandwidth?

========================================


Dear GeoCities Member,

Congratulations, http://www.geocities.com/ticklewiggle seems to
be very popular and has been receiving a large amount of traffic.
Our records indicate that you're using more than the allotted amount
of data transfer we provide for a free web site, which is 3 gigabytes
per month (measured on an hourly basis). That means that during the
past few days we had to temporarily turn your site off to keep the
bandwidth within this limit.

What can I do?

Keep in mind that large files such as images and multimedia files
can effect your data transfer greatly. A single web page that
contains 200,000 bytes of images will only be able to be viewed
about 20-25 times an hour. By keeping your file sizes and page
sizes as small as possible, you can maximize the amount of page views
your site can produce.

You can also upgrade your site to one of our new premium services,
GeoCities Pro or GeoCities Webmaster. These packages allow for 10 and
20 gigabytes of data transfer per month, and also give you the option of
purchasing unlimited data transfer so your site will always be accessible.
These packages also enable you to run an ad-free site at your own
domain name (for example, www.ticklewiggle.com) (http://www.ticklewiggle.com)) AND get matching email
accounts at that domain (like you@ticklewiggle.com).

For more information about our new packages, please visit http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info3
Upgrading your current GeoCities site to one of our new premium packages
is simple. You don't have to move ANY of your files, and your current
GeoCities web address will continue to work in addition to your domain.

If you'd prefer not to receive this notice in the future, just go to http://geocities.yahoo.com/opt/bwemail to take your name off of the notify
list. Of course, our servers will continue to monitor your site's data
usage and turn it off if it exceeds the limits.

Thank you,

Yahoo! GeoCities http://geocities.yahoo.com/