You might have heard your web hosting companies using the term “bandwidth” in reference to web hosting and web sites. Bandwidth is the measure of total amount of data that is transferred from one point to another point over network connection. This is measured in bits per second and is considered to be a vital aspect of web hosting services. In blogs and forums, the activities conducted are generally much more than in ordinary website where there is no option to insert data by the visitors. In the former cases, visitors can open their accounts; make comments, vote, and upload images apart from just reading its content. Hence it is obvious that the data transfer and number of hits on these websites are much more than simple company websites. Consequently the bandwidth of these sites are higher that any other average websites.
It may help to break down how you can calculate your monthly website usage and this can be done very simply. The first step should be determining how much bandwidth your website uses, for calculation sake, lets say 20KB. The next step is to work out how many visits your site has per day, which for simplicity sake we shall say is ten hits. This calculations means your daily usage equates to 20 x 10. To get your monthly usage, you simply multiply your daily usage by the number of the days in the month. An important thing to remember is that some providers may list the bandwidth in bytes as opposed to bites.
1 byte is the equivalent of 8 bits and 1 kilobyte is the equivalent of 1024 bytes.
It is easy to use bandwidth unnecessarily and the biggest culprits are large sized graphics and a lot of customer comments. It is also fair to say that if the end user seeks to receive a lot of images or large amounts of data that they too will use a fair share of bandwidth. This has to be borne in mind when you are constructing your website. It is common to want to add a lot of cool audio and visual treats to your site but doing so will greatly increase your bandwidth consumption. Knowing how much bandwidth you expect to use will help you seek the right package for your usage but beware of web host providers not living up to their promise. There are some providers who will not deliver what they guarantee and this makes choosing the correct supplier an important task.
Determine the amount of bandwidth you need
When you are considering the amount of bandwidth that your site will require, there are many things to consider. There are many influences on the answer that is best for you and particular attention must be attributed to mathematic and technical issues. The available bandwidth will limit the amount of items you can offer on your website so for current and future projects, consideration has to be made. Given that it is likely you will want to update your website over time, it is advisable to leave some bandwidth in store to allow for progression. Allowing yourself the opportunity to contemplate how much bandwidth is needed for your site can allow you to make the best decision possible. A good way to get the best advice is to ask your web provider for advice about what would be the best product for you. The simplest way to determine the amount of bandwidth you need to use is on a monthly basis and this is why the majority of providers offer measurements in this manner. A way to measure bandwidth can be seen as:
Average number of times a page is viewed multiplied by the average number of visitors to your site on a daily basis multiplied by a variable factor multiplied by how many days in a month, with 30 being a good average.
If you would like to offer a range of flexibility regarding bandwidth usage, the following calculation may be preferable:
[(Daily Visitors x Page Views x Page Size) + (Daily File Downloads x File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor
Note: The above calculations all use an average figure to obtain the most relevant return.
Relation between bandwidth and traffic:
There is a strong correlation between the amount of traffic a website has and the number of bandwidth it uses. There is no doubt that the users who will have the best opinion and reaction about the bandwidth on a site will be the users as they have the most interaction with the website. A simple example of this would be if a website user was to download a music track to their PC, then there is a sizable amount of traffic traveling between the website and the user. Depending on the speed of the connection of the users internet, the amount of time taken will vary largely. If the user has a quick connection, the faster the download time will be and there is a smaller amount of bandwidth used. Conversely, if the user has a slow internet connection, the longer the process time and there will be a larger amount of bandwidth used. The process of information being passed between connections is what is known as traffic and this also has an impact on the site.
How to cut down bandwidth usage?
It might happen suddenly that you receive a monthly bill for hosting that brings perspiration on your forehead. The hosting company justified the bill explaining that the monthly minimum bandwidth usage has been exceeded for your website and asks you to bring down the file size in your website. You are at a fix and simply do not know what would be your send stand.
Each website is populated by a number of files and each file has a corresponding size. If a visitor comes to your site and accesses these files, there will be an impact on the amount of bandwidth that your site uses. Remember that it is your website and you can influence the use of by reducing or increasing the usage depending on the needs of the site. Given that it is your website, you can impose limits on the number of files or downloadable content that is made available on your site. Each individual file can have a large size by itself and if it is downloaded by a large number of users can have a great impact on the bandwidth that is being used. Anything that increases bandwidth use will increase the cost you incur. A simple example of this can come in a large graphic that is on your homepage which each visitor is required to download. If this happens a lot of times the amount of bandwidth being used will become excessive. Some people may decide to take this page away from their site but this is not always an option so it may be worthwhile trying to reduce the size of graphics or logos available. These changes may not seem a lot but it may make a noticeable difference when your next bill comes from your web host provider. Another opportunity to improve the amount of bandwidth you site uses is to take advantage of Cascading Style sheets as it is based around HTML files and these have a much smaller size.
Ways to improve your bandwidth use:
* Always keep an estimation of the number of visiting or can visit your page in future. A monthly estimation is always beneficial.
* It may be possible to purchase a meter free bandwidth facility. This facility may feature a higher than usual cost compared to a limited bandwidth provision but clearly there is no risk of going beyond a pre-set limit. The bandwidth rating is contained on your control panel but it will not be continually assessed by your web host.
* If you make changes in your website then always calculate the current web page size or else you will not be able to keep track of the bandwidth bills.
* If there is an opportunity to limit the amount of comments a visitor can make to your site, this could be a good option to reduce excessive inputs.
* Have a conversation with your provider about being to improve your services. A rise in your usage may not lead to a rise in the amount of bandwidth being used. However, you may be able to benefit by eliminating any files that are no longer required.
* Rather than hosting things like Java Script within your site, try having them hosted with an external agent.
* If you resize any of your graphics or logo, remember to refresh and upload to ensure your bandwidth usage is kept to a minimum.
Last points you should remember:
It is your web host that can guide you bets on bandwidth. Selection of the right web host can matter if your want a proper guidance on web hosting services. The structure and the content of the WebPages would definitely determine the bandwidth expenses. But the effective guidance from the web hosts can equally help you on this regard. Bandwidth theft is a common practice in which the people use other sites images by simply linking them with another page. Such practices, without notice, can be punishable and should not be practices. So if you are a novice, and your website owner advises you on this then always try to avoid. Before discussing with the web host regarding bandwidth and always better to make a study and some research on bandwidth. Your website developers can also guide you extensively in informing about the techniques to save bandwidth.
Article is published with permission from,a leading provider of comprehensive reviews of web hosting companies. Visit http://www.webhostingmadness.com for more information about and exclusive deals on web hosting.