Friday

Understanding Web Hosting Bandwidth

By William MacMahon


There is a lot of talk regarding bandwidth, most likely, you've heard this term at your web hosting company. Although there are many ways to describe bandwidth, it can be seen as the size of data that goes between two separate ends of an internet network link (i.e. from your web host to your computer). Bandwidth is one of the most important topics for a web host to discuss and its size is measured per second, in bits. How much bandwidth is used by a site varies depending on the services it offers. A site like a forum where there is a lot of scope for people to chat and interact will require more bandwidth than non-interactive sites. The more options a person has to interact on a site, the higher the bandwidth usage is likely to be. All of these options mean there is a larger amount of data being used and more people visit the site more often when compared to a standard website.

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.

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.

Work out how much bandwidth you require.

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:

Average Page Views x Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Size Fudge Factor x 30

If you would like to offer a range of flexibility regarding bandwidth usage, the following calculation may be preferable:

Adding the sum of the amount of visitors per day times how may times a page is looked at times the size of the web page and adding it to the number of files that retrieved from your site by the average size of the file will give the first half of the equation. This figure can then be multiplied by the largest number of days possible and a fudged figure to get the answer.

Note: All these are measured based on average data.

How traffic and bandwidth are linked:

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.

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.

Every website is comprised of a number of files and each file on the website takes up so much space. If a visitor to your website comes along and uses these files, this will increase your bandwidth usage. As it is your website, you have the option to control aspects on your website and it is possible to alter how often a file gets used. By limiting the number of images or downloadable items you have available on your site, you can further reduce the bandwidth that is being used on your site. Considering that these files can have a huge size and if they are being downloaded by many users, the overall impact on your bandwidth usage can be very damaging. Altering certain things on your website can also help to reduce its use. For instance, if there is an image or file on your website that is downloaded every time a visitor hits your site, there will be an excessive amount of bandwidth being used. The first action may be too remove the offending file but if this is not an option open to you, you may wish to lower the size of the file. If you are able to do this, you should be rewarded with a lower bill the following month from your bandwidth provider. Another way to look at reducing your bandwidth use is to check for cascading style sheets as they are able to make the size of your HTML files much smaller.

Ways to improve your bandwidth use:

* 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.

* There are options to buy un-metered bandwidth hosting. In such a plan you are charged higher than nay normal shared or dedicated hosting plan and in return the usage will be unlimited. The host won't monitor the bandwidth rating which is reflected on the left hand side of the control panel.

* 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.

* Try to cut down the inputs from any visitors on your sites. Allow only selected visitors to make comments on your website.

* 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.

* A better way to embed JavaScript may be to do it on an external site as opposed to having it placed on every page.

* 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 remarks:

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.




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