Why Aren't My Torrents Seeding?

Why Aren't My Torrents Seeding?

There are many factors to getting upload on a torrent. Seeding on What.CD is quite different than most torrent sites. Please review these points for more information on why you don't see as much upload traffic on What.CD than other sites. At the time of writing What.CD currently has over 2.2 million torrents but only 146 thousand users. This account-to-torrent ratio is extremely skewed compared to other torrent sites.

If you have been sent to this article by someone, chances are it will answer your question 99.9% of the time. Please read through this article carefully.

Seed to Peer Ratio
Most torrents on What.CD have extremely saturated seed counts. For every one person downloading any given torrent, there are over 70 seeders. This means any upload that can be gained by the seeders, will at best be distributed evenly. Given the small size of What.CD torrents (relative to say, a movie tracker), most of the time only the fastest connections on a particular torrent will get upload credit.


Connection Speed + SeedBox
There are many users who use seedboxes (computers with 100mbit and 1gbit connections) to jump on new torrents. Their extremely fast connections speeds allow them to create a fast swarm very early in a torrent's life. While this does get files to peers faster, it also shifts the ratio gain over to the seedbox users as well.


Being Connectible
Being connectible is a big part of getting connections made quickly, ensuring your client is able to seed to the best of its ability. Have a look at the importance of being connectible for more information.


Downloading "Popular" Torrents
On most sites with large TV or movie torrents, jumping on popular ones is a good way of getting your ratio up. This is not the same for What.CD or other trackers that deal primarily with smaller files and torrents. Downloading popular torrents because you notice a large number of peers also downloading leads a lot of users to ratio watch. Most of these "peers" are actually just partial seeders, users who have downloaded part of a torrent and are seeding back only that portion. They do not show up as seeders in the system because they haven't downloaded the entire torrent. The small size of music torrents also gives large advantages to seedboxes, who can upload an entire torrent to another user in a few seconds/minutes with a 1gbit connection. Unless you are on a very fast connection (100mbit+), this method is not advised for raising ratio or gaining buffer.


Downloading a Bunch of Top 10 Torrents
See above.


Only Seeding a Fraction of Your Snatched Torrents
If you are only seeding a small amount of torrents, you will not see much upload. If you are on ratio watch because you have snatched ~100+ torrents but are only seeding 6, you need to start seeding the other 94 torrents! Seeding all of your torrents will also decrease your required ratio.
Remember, this site has a vast amount of music only a few people will listen to over the course of a few years. If you are seeding these types of torrents due to your musical tastes, expect to seed at least that long to get upload credit for the torrents. Seeding all of your snatches will increase your ability to get upload.


Is Anyone Downloading What I'm Seeding?
If no one is downloading the specific torrents you are seeding, you aren't going to see any upload. You can look at the peer list of your torrent on the specific torrents page. Select the torrent then select "Peer List" to see all of the users currently in the swarm. If no one is in there with less than 100% of the torrent, you will not get upload for that torrent.


I downloaded insert some huge file size torrent here, but I'm not getting any upload from it!
See the above post. That huge torrent you downloaded in an attempt to help your ratio isn't going to get any upload in return. All of the "peers" you see on the torrent page are just partial seeders, they aren't actively downloading anything. Stay away from big torrents.


I See Peers on the Torrent, but I'm Not Connecting to Them!
Even though there might be peers on a torrent, they won't necessarily connect to you, their bandwidth could be already full from other seeds and they do not need to connect to anymore. Not all peers are downloading data either; they could be partially seeding a torrent and will still show up as a peer to the tracker. If there are dozens of seeds and only one leecher, your chances of getting data transferred to them are smaller than if you are the only seed on a torrent.
Other factors can be at play here. For example, an ISP could be blocking the connection, both users might not be connectible, a poorly configured client could be incorrectly blocking a connection, etc.


I'm only getting a 1.0 ratio on content I upload
Uploading current year music will almost ensure your torrent will be snatched by a handful of seedbox users looking to gain buffer from your torrent. Your "super fast" connection speed from your home ISP of 768kbps doesn't compare to a 100 or 1000mbit server. You will likely only be uploading 1 complete copy of your torrent to the swarm before seedbox users take over from there.
The main thing to keep in mind about seedboxes is without them most content uploaded wouldn't be snatched at all, so consider yourself lucky you're getting upload at all on an obscure band or genre that wouldn't be readily snatched otherwise.


I can download just fine, but I never get any upload on torrents
Again, look at the seed to peer ratio on that torrent. If there are 50+ seeders on a torrent, and 1 or 2 leechers, you aren't going to get much (any) upload credit from them.


I'm seeding X amount of torrents but I'm not getting any upload!
See "Is Anyone Downloading What I'm Seeding?"
The best way to get upload credit is to seed all of your torrents, not just X amount of them.


What's the point of seeding if I'm not going to upload anything?
Remember that seeding your torrents, even if they don't actively upload much, keeps your required ratio down, allowing you to download more. Read more about your required ratio here.
Seeding your torrents 24/7 increases your chances of getting upload. If your client isn't running when a peer comes along the peer is going to download from someone else.


I Seed So Well on insert other site name here, but on What.CD my torrents never upload!
Seed to Peer ratios on other sites are far less than What.CD. Also, torrent sizes on sites dealing with movies, tv, and programs, are much larger than music torrents, and will have more data being pulled from a larger amount of seeds, creating more swarm traffic. Also take into account that this site has over 2.2 million torrents, but only 146 thousand users. Getting upload on torrents here is much, much harder than a scene release site with only a few hundred thousand torrents.