If you have a shared hosting account with cPanel or Plesk, you may notice high bandwidth usage sometimes. Here, we will discuss what the cause is and how can we resolve such issues.
In shared hosting, once your account exceeds the threshold bandwidth limit, then your website will stop working. It is always good if you keep an eye on your account resource regularly to prevent any unusual. Here, we have mentioned a few causes that can affect high bandwidth usage.
What are the possible causes of high bandwidth usage?
High bandwidth usage means your website gets lots of traffic. It could happen if your website becomes popular, and in that case, you will need to upgrade your plan to VPS or a Dedicated server.
Your account might get high bandwidth usage unexpectedly due to some other factors. Here, we have mentioned the common issues which can cause high bandwidth usage.
- If a website is hacked, that can cause unexpected high bandwidth usage. Ensure that you are using a secure password and keep all the software updated. For a Wordpress website, you will need to use an updated WordPress version, theme and plugins. Please refer to how to fix a hacked Wordpress website?
- Frequently run the cron jobs: You should run the cron jobs only when does it require. Running the high resource or intensive cron jobs can cause high resource usages and particularly bandwidth usage. For shared hosting service, the shortest cron interval should be 15 minutes.
- If you have allowed commenting on your Wordpress blog or forum can affect the high bandwidth usage. Spammers can automate the comments to cause high bandwidth usage. You can disable the comment section or add the CAPTCHA protection on your website. Please refer to how to add google reCAPTCHA protection on your Wordpress website? You can also add the CAPTCHA to your contact us page and login screen for more protection.
You can consider implementing Cloudflare for your website for security protection. Please refer to how to add a website in Cloudflare? As we have mentioned above, If the high bandwidth usage is genuine, you can consider upgrading your plan to VPS or a Dedicated server.
