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Site Note: A Bandwidth Quota Warning
2 January 2017
We tripped over a bit of unwelcome news in our email this morning. "If your current usage trends continue, we estimate that your over-quota usage will result in a charge of $1,356.30 at the end of the month," our Internet Service Provider informed us.
After a little investigation, we found Google's indexing bot is the culprit, hitting us pretty hard. It appears to be done with its review so we don't expect to be billed $1,356.30 for the privilege of having Google's index of the site up to date.
But it does make us think.
We have bandwith quota protection enabled to protect us from unforeseen charges like that. But that just means if we go over our limit for the month (which we tripled a couple of months ago), the site becomes inaccessible. Not a great solution when you're in the publishing business.
Two approaches occur to us:
- Block Google from indexing the site. You can always use Mike's Method to find things (and it's always current, unlike Google, although the first search takes a minute or so to complete).
- Only permit subscribers access to current stories (although the headlines page will still be accessible to all).
Neither of those approaches strikes us as much of a solution to the problem. But they both beat going dark for a few days.
We thought we'd just let you know what we're thinking while we can still reach you.