How much traffic do most people get who post free stuff? The place I was looking into, they allow 500MB a day for their "unlimited." And you can go over for a few days. I was thinking of posting my free stuff for three days once a month and letting people have at it then. But if I'm being a complete idiot about the hordes who will descend then let me know. Things I will be posting so far are Hair textures [Lyrra's for the Wedge, which I've recolored] and abstract backgrounds. Emily

Well, I can say this much - putting up a freebie for just 3 days is going to result in endless strings of emails about, 'Oh, WHERE did that freebie go? Can you send it to me?' so I would NOT advise that. 500MB/day is sort of reasonable, but it depends of course on the intensity of traffic on that first day after putting up the freebie. If it's a big file and popular, 500MB is peanuts. It's actually better to have a gigs/month limit, that way peaks down't cause you so much trouble. :] FishNose

Yeah, I'm coming out of dreamland here-- the rest of the package is so sweet, I really wanted to go with it, but, swarms of locusts are nothing compared to download frenzy-- I know, I'm usually one of the sharks gathering. Emily

You can get 1-3000 hits on just the thumbnail image. Even if no one downloads you file :) smerc

That bandwidth can add up. My free stuff entries might not be the most popular, but some of them have been downloaded over 1,000 times. And that doesn't count the thumbnail views alone.

And this 500MB a day is from a place that claims "unlimited" bandwidth. I'm looking at another site offering-- it says-- 1 to 50G a month- which is more reasonable, but it is a mine field out there. And everyone is paranoid about nudity. I had to send one salesperson to Daz to show them what I meant about no human beings involved. It's been a while since I had websites to worry about. Emily

Attached Link: http://www.olm.net/promo/

If the freebie is popular, you can fully expect to lose about 3-4GB of bandwidth in a single 24-hour period... otherwise, it averages about 700MB per day. The combination of everything I host is usually 11GB per day of bandwidth, and when someone chucks in a popular item, it jumps to about 20GB for the first day, then settles back down within the next couple of days. HTH, /P

Check the fine print of the hosting company- they may offer "unlimited" bandwidth, but there is probably a clause about "excessive traffic" (which is, of course, based on their judgment). Also, many places don't allow "nudity" and may or may not accept Poser-type nudity (even if it doesn't involved real people, etc.) The biggest thing to watch out for is how they notify you that they will turn off your website. When I went over my traffic limit a few months ago, my hosting company (Globalspace Solutions, whom I have been with for over 3 years) shut off my website without telling me. They claimed that they sent me an e-mail to my old e-mail address. And, of course, my usual e-mail address is at my domain name... which they turned off! That's right- when they turned off the website, e-mil was shut off also! And, now it seems that I've gone over the traffic limit for April as well. (And, yes, they shut off my site again, but this time they gave me advanced warning and I told them not to shut off the e-mail.) I will be switching to hostonce.com as soon as Network Solutions/ Verisign gets their act together and switched my DNS information. To make a long story short, they keep sending the "please verify this change" e-mail to my old e-mail address... even though I have been submitting changes online AND faxing them change requests for the past 2 1/2 weeks! (The moral to this paragraph is that it is a MAJOR issue to change information with them, so find a hosting company that you are happy with and don't change it.) --John

Thanks, I did go with olm.net--partially, I'll admit out of frustration. There's a 8G cap per month so we'll see. The internet used to be fun. Sigh. I don't want to make money, I just want to give things away-- but I don't want to go broke either. Emily

I know exactly what you are going through. Been trying to change my DNS for the last 2.5 weeks myself. Have emailed, faxed, changed the information in "manage my account" on their site, and still nothing. My website is done but I cannot access it with my own domain name yet. They really need to get their act together!!!