My bandwidth usage is off the charts!

Can someone take a look at my site and see why my monthly bandwidth is so high?

Just this year alone my total usage can be anywhere from 7gb-50gb a month. According to my control panel, it is all coming from HTTP usage. I am unlimited so it's not a big deal, but would definitely like to lower this.

http://www.alliedarmory.com/

Thanks in advance

You didn't mention what kind of traffic you're getting, but part of the problem is certainly the size of your images. I just looked at a few, and found they ranged (file size, not dimensions) from 3Kb or so up to almost 200Kb (cleaning kits).

You want your product listing images to be <10Kb, and <5Kb is better.

You can optimize them manually, or install the Image Handler 2 mod, which will do it for you. I think you'll see a noticable difference.

p.s. There isn't really any such thing as 'unlimited' anything. If your site gets popular enough, your host will throttle your bandwidth, regardless of what they say in their ads.

Maybe they already are. The site seems to be blocked currently.

I don't know if this might be your issue. But I also had the same issue and track it down to request from:
China Beijing Chinanet Shanxi(sn) Province Network
124.114.0.0 - 124.115.255.255

So we blocked the ip's (Would not ship to China anyway)
deny from 124.115
deny from 124.114

Now the server error log is larger but bandwidth is back to normal.

Skip

Ok it seems ok right now after installing Image Handler 2. I left it at default settings and the bandwidth usage dropped by over 50%. Do I need to change any settings in IH2? The large file is still over 30k. Or is that good?

Sorry for having the site blocked to some. We only sell/ship within the USA and have all other IPs blocked currently.

The large file is still over 30k. Or is that good?
Others also noticed some at 200Kb+
With IH2 you only need the large image
Browsers only display at approx 72px/inch
So a large image displayed at 640x480 only need to be about 30KB

Optimizing the following images could reduce their size by 73.3KiB (42% reduction).

http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/f/fd68637232b8bd0e8a837d37c3536238.image.80x80.png could save 21.8KiB (86% reduction).
http://alliedarmory.com/images/slideshow/pmag.jpg could save 18.5KiB (59% reduction).
http://alliedarmory.com/images/slideshow/dd.jpg could save 16.5KiB (63% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/includes/templates/template_default/images/logo1.jpg could save 15.0KiB (37% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/includes/templates/nightfall/images/sidebox_bottom.gif could save 340B (71% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/includes/templates/nightfall/images/sidebox_top.gif could save 66B (3% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/0/053e3f9bc910e4ae0e0429013dc64697.image.106x80.jpg could save 61B (2% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/2/209e6bfa9cc9abcc77f2bd0d22e5f812.image.128x80.jpg could save 61B (2% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/2/2796c51fca1c02acd62bb874eb0a6416.image.80x80.jpg could save 61B (3% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/3/32cc6efad5242ae6a356e85e3080c9e9.image.86x80.jpg could save 61B (3% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/5/561d8f2f1e2da173bab93897544b36e2.image.80x80.jpg could save 61B (1% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/6/6b533864238477c5766810acf1157012.image.92x80.jpg could save 61B (2% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/6/6f8619e8fb62f4a5d69f94f95c82c9f9.image.81x80.jpg could save 61B (3% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/9/9a034682db586fb0d11334fe86c1ab83.image.80x80.jpeg could save 61B (3% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/9/9bf57636f3aa5f60ce2faf54646080ed.image.151x80.jpg could save 61B (1% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/a/a769dffb13a7d038db61c2265371494a.image.129x80.jpg could save 61B (2% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/b/b0e02201d3ba5984f7d4ef70c63c7b15.image.120x80.JPG could save 61B (2% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/b/bef7d494a30c193c51cbbf1919ad7834.image.99x80.jpg could save 61B (1% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/c/c489b43961222109efc5f88819af65b3.image.128x80.jpg could save 61B (1% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/e/e6d3be49d3407503bb6446c302e6189f.image.128x80.jpg could save 61B (3% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/e/edeea0ad2d0c52a444680ebccd77e3d0.image.119x80.jpg could save 61B (1% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/f/f41641262f3a7357b9d56c405c12aaa3.image.106x80.jpg could save 61B (2% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/bmz_cache/f/fe92854f91d14d98a7743e226038f949.image.120x80.jpg could save 61B (2% reduction).
http://www.alliedarmory.com/images/bg-diagonal.jpg could save 54B (7% reduction).

Also notice you have mixed hosts because of improper canonicalization www and non www

~Melanie