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.
8 bits = 1 byte and 1024 bytes = 1 Kilobytes
Another thing that can cause an ineffectual use of bandwidth is a vast number of pictures or a lot of user comments or remarks. It also makes sense that a person who has heavy usage on the internet including products that have a large size will invariably use a huge amount of bandwidth. This places a huge deal of importance on getting the right website from your web provider. The greater amount of visual, audio and graphical that is on a website, the greater the need for bandwidth will become. It is not always possible for a website provider to live up to the promises they make, so it is important to research them properly. As in all walks of life, having a provider who can meet all your needs is an important aspect when choosing your website host.
Understand the amount of bandwidth that fits your requirements.
How would you known that what is the required bandwidth of your website? This question needs to be answered from technical and mathematical point of view. This would also determine the website content you are having and have projected to include in future. It is always better to keep some bandwidth in hand as it would allow you to develop the website and include new features later on. You should take out some time in determining the bandwidth required for your website. If required you can discuss the issue with your web hosts who can suggest you better on this. Almost every hosting company measures the bandwidth plan on a monthly basis and hence you can chart your requirements based n that only. Bandwidth is generally measured as:
The number of days per month times times the number of pages viewed times the number of visitors who use your site daily times the size of your page.
If you would like to offer a range of flexibility regarding bandwidth usage, the following calculation may be preferable:
[(Visitors per day x number of pages looked at x size of the page) added to (the size of downloads per day x the size of the file downloaded) times the maximum number of days in a month (31) times by a variable factor.
Note: These calculations have been created to work with the average figures for each element.
Relation between bandwidth and traffic:
Bandwidth and traffic are closely interlinked with each other. Visitors can experience best the bandwidth as they are the people who carry out various activities with the websites. If a visitor wants to download an MP3 files from a website into the computer, then 4MB traffic is created between the website and the user’s computer. If the user is having a fast internet connection then the file won’t take much time to get downloaded and hence the bandwidth consumed in the process would be low. The reverse happens if the internet connectivity is poor. Traffic is measured by the number of bits that are transferred on network connections.
Learn how to reduce the amount of bandwidth that you use.
We all dread bills and an unexpected bill can really cause panic and problems to a person. If you exceed your bandwidth amount, your provider is well within their rights to charge you for this as well as send you a reminder to keep your usage down. This may obviously cause you problems and you could be wondering how you can fix this problem.
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.
Handy hints for your bandwidth:
* Be able to have a rough estimate of the amount of visitors that access your site or may be likely to access your site at a later date. You can see why it can be of use to have a projection for monthly usage.
* Have you considered the option of purchasing bandwidth that is not metered? This type of plan may cost more but it comes with more freedom regarding the size of bandwidth available, which will be unlimited. You will also have freedom from your web host who will not be constantly monitoring your website usage.
* When altering your website, ensure you make a note of the changes to allow your estimates to be up to date and more accurate.
* Try to cut down the inputs from any visitors on your sites. Allow only selected visitors to make comments on your website.
* Talk to your web hosting company regularly for upgrading your website. Upgrading doesn’t always mean that there will be an increase in the bandwidth consumption. But this can also decrease the consumption of bandwidth by elimination unnecessary files.
* If you use JavaScript then instead of embedding it in each page, use it externally.
* Bandwidth can be eaten up by graphics with a large size so always ensure to load up graphics that have been reduced in size.
Last points you should remember:
There are many places to get advice on how best to use your bandwidth but the strongest advice would come from your web host. The advice that is offered by the firm should also be factored into the decision you make about provider to go with. There are many factors that will impact on how much your bandwidth costs you but the layout and content will have a lot to do with it. The amount of different factors that can have an influence on the cost involved means the support and advice from your web provider can be a vital factor in keeping your expenditure within budget. This support can be extremely helpful in combating in bandwidth theft. This occurs when other web users place links to graphics and images that are held on your site by linking to them from their site. This is an offense that carries a punishment and is not to be encouraged. This means that if you are advised of undertaking this activity you should always refuse. All decisions in life should feature some form of research and the same can be said for choosing which bandwidth provider to work with. Always be sure to communicate with your web provider to learn the best ways about the best ways to reduce how much bandwidth you use.