Stealing bandwith is not uncommon on the World Wide Web.

Some people steal bandwith from remote sites.  In other words, they link directly to something on soneone's page instead of uploading it to their own webpage.  Some people do it just for sheer laziness while others do it out of lack of education.  Very few websites allow direct linking to files on ttheir sites.

If I offered free graphics for webpage, I could have potential bandwith stealers.  (That's one reason I don't offer graphics on my website at the moment.)  Someone could have a webpage at http://www.theirsite.com/ and link to a graphic on my website by doing the following:  http://www.kristisplace.com/webgraphics/image1dec232000.jpg instead of linking to http://www.kristisplace.com/webgraphics/.  That is an example of bandwith stealing.

Webmistress and webmasters who have their own domains are often charged by the amount of information that is downloaded off of their websites.  For instance, in any given month, I am allowed 8 GIGS in files that can be transferred from my website.  Anything above that I am charged for.   A lot of webhosting services are not so generous with the amount that can be transferred from the site.  To prevent people from continuosly stealing bandwith, a lot of webmistresses or webmasters will change the names of their graphic images frequently.  Some will put their graphic sites in a password-protected directory.  And some will just simply take their websites down.

If you link directly to something (such as a graphic or midi file) on a webpage, the remote linking will slow the load time of your webpage.  Your visitors should not have to wait more than a minute for your webpage to load.

If you link directly to a file (such as a graphic or midi file) on another site, the file will not appear on your page if it is renamed.  Your visitors want to see all the neat-looking things on your page, not a bunch of broken images where files should be.

There is a must-visit site on the World Wide Web where you can learn much more about bandwith theft.  There is a group of people on the World Wide Web who are on the lookout for bandwith stealers.  Please click on the graphic or link below to visit the site: