Tuesday, June 7, 2011

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.

To define bandwidth mathematically one can say that, if your website is of 10 KB and the total number of hits is 20 per day, then your bandwidth would be 10 x 20 bites and if you want a monthly report multiple it with 30. Bandwidth is sometimes measured in bytes also.

8 bits = 1 byte and 1024 bytes = 1 Kilobytes

The heavy images on websites and too many feedbacks from the customers waste bandwidth. Moreover, if the user tends to download heavy items from the web then he/she would be expecting heavy consumption of bandwidth as well. Therefore, if you want your website to be filled up with videos, graphics and information then make sure that the bandwidth provided by your web host matches with your requirements. Some of the web hosts promise to provide large number of such services but later they turn their faces. Hence, in this respect proper selection of the hosts is also demanded.

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:

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.

While if you allow people ample downloading options from your website your bandwidth would be measured as:

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: These calculations have been created to work with the average figures for each element.

How traffic and bandwidth are linked:

There is a strong correlation between bandwidth usage and the amount of traffic a website gets. The best judge of this is quite often the visitors to a website as they will have first hand experience of undertaking actions of the site. This can be seen if a visitor wishes to download a music track or a video from the site. This creates traffic between the visitors' computer and the website. The bandwidth this takes up can be very low if the user has a rapid internet connection, which helps the file to download in a short space of time. The opposite can be said if the user has a very slow connection and this will result in a long download time and a large amount of bandwidth being used. This is very important if you are trying to keep note of how many bits are being transferred as this is what is classed as traffic.

Learn how to reduce the amount of bandwidth that you use.

Sometimes a bill can come out of the blue that leaves you catching your breath and the same can be said for your monthly bandwidth bill. If you have a pre arranged bandwidth limit, it is simple for your provider to state that you have went over your limit and charge you accordingly whilst requesting you reduce your usage. This request can leave many users not knowing what to do and what they should do for the best.

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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* Rather than hosting things like Java Script within your site, try having them hosted with an external agent.

* 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:

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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