Web Hosting Bandwidth Explained

When shopping for web hosting, a very common concern, and legitimate one, is the amount of bandwidth you will need. This article is intended to help you determine just how much of bandwidth your web site requires. When you are buying insufficient bandwidth, you might find yourself in two undesired situations: paying, usually high fees, for the extra bandwidth your web site needed or having your web site shut off. Overbuying bandwidth is not a good thing either as it will put you in the position to pay for something you don’t use. This article is intended to help you determine just how much of bandwidth your web site requires.

What is bandwidth anyway?
Let’s just see what bandwidth is. Bandwidth is the term that is used to denote the amount of data that has been transferred from your web space to the computers of your visitors. To put it simple, bandwidth is the amount of data that flows across a network wire in a given period of time. In web hosting industry this time period usually is one month. This happens simply because web hosting providers are also charged monthly for their huge broadband Internet connection. This is the cost that ultimately is then passed on to the consumer in the form price for their individual web hosting plan.

Bandwidth being such a delicate matter for a successful web presence, could you at least estimate the bandwidth needs of your web site? The answer is yes, you can estimate it, but you can never be sure of your estimate being perfectly correct because of all the variables involved.

How do I calculate my bandwidth?
If your index.html page has a size of let’s say 50 KB, every time you get a visitor on your start page (assuming that your visitors will only open you first page and not browse your entire web site), your visitor will download 50 KB of information onto his or hers computer. For 100 visitors, you will get a total of 5.000 KB of data being transferred from the web server hosting your site to your visitor’s computers.

So a formula for computing your estimated needs of bandwidth would look like this:
Size of your web content * number of visitors that accessed that web page = your consumed bandwidth

The formula looks very simple, yet estimating correctly the bandwidth required by your web site is anything but simple. This is obvious when you look at what makes up this formula.

The size of one web page is one thing, and the total size of your web site is another. You should take into consideration the total size of your web site and this means including files offered for download. Also web sites grow in time or even change completely. When this happens, you must redo the estimates for your web site bandwidth.

When it comes to visitors browsing your web site, it is rather difficult to predict what pages your visitors will access. For example, some visitors would stop at the index page, other will look for the contact details, and some will download your brochure. Knowing the sheer number of visitors your site has over one month can be very helpful in estimating the bandwidth required to support them.

Ultimately, when trying to find out the amount of bandwidth your web site requires you must answer two important questions:

    What is the size of your web site?
    What is the traffic your web site will get?

For a not very large web site that is not very that doesn’t offer audio/video downloads and doesn’t get very much traffic, you don’t need a very large amount of bandwidth. Average web sites use only about 500 MB of monthly bandwidth. But for small web sites that generate a lot of traffic, you should consider a web hosting plan that offers a lot of bandwidth.

For your reference, an average web site (for example a personal or a family web site) will also get average traffic, meaning a range of 50-500 visitors per day.

When assessing the requirements of your web site bandwidth, you must also understand that although you have purchased your web hosting together with the bandwidth as “per month”, your total monthly bandwidth is usually broken down into daily rates. Exceeding the daily rates might result in having your web site shut down for the day.

How to keep your bandwidth down?
Having a lot of rich web content (images, flash files, audio files) is a good way to make your web site more attractive for your visitors, but also is the shortest way to burn out your bandwidth. This article won’t tell you to give up using such files for your web site, instead simply point out that overcrowding your web pages with images could harm not only your bandwidth, but also the usability of your web site. Good web site design is not proportional with the number of images per page.

Offering downloads on your web such as site music files, .PDF files, flash or video files is another thing that will almost sure consume your bandwidth by just a handful of visitors. The simple download of an average .PDF file half of megabyte in size will consume monthly 1 GB of bandwidth, only with 2.000 people downloading it.

Stick to your goals and adjust your web site’s content strictly to fulfill them.

Keeping down the amount of bandwidth your web site is consuming might be easy to achieve with good preparation and excellent web design.

To avoid sky-high bandwidth costs, try to apply the following suggestions:
1) Make the file size of your web pages as small as possible. Lots of tools, some of them freeware can help you to do just that by compressing them.

2) Keep the images on your web site to a minimum. For the images included in your web site, use .JPG or .GIF compression tools to reduce the size and still keep the quality at an acceptable level.

3) Try not to offer too many downloadable files. If your have to offer downloadable files, it is best to only include the ones around 1 MB in size.

The right way the to start when planning your web site’s bandwidth needs, apart from the traffic your site will get, is to look at the type your content your are going to serve to your visitors. If your web site is packed with multimedia (video, music, flash etc) or if your offer .PDF files for download, you might consider opting for a dedicated server. Even in the event your web site is just starting out an you have limited funding for its hosting, it would be wise to choose a web hosting provider that will offer you a plan with more resources than your estimate need at a reasonable price.

As no matter how good your estimate is, there is a chance that it will fail Free Reprint Articles, don’t forget to look at the charges for the bandwidth exceeding your monthly plan.

Unlimited Bandwidth in Web Hosting

Bandwidth is the amount of data transfer that you are allowed to have for a hosting package i.e. Let’s say you have a web page that is 48KB in size, now each time a user opens your site and goes to that page S/he downloads 48 KB of information on to their computer. If a 100 users view that page one time each then there has been a total of 4800 KB of data transferred from the server on which your files are stored for the computer of users.

Size of web Page: 48 KB
Number of users who viewed the web page: 100
Total amount of data transferred: 48KB * 100 = 4800 KB

Bandwidth is the term that is used to denote the amount of data that has been transferred from your web space.

The amount of bandwidth that you require while choosing a host depends on two factors:

> The size of your site.
> The popularity of your site.

If your site is not very huge and you do not have any audio/video downloads and it’s not very popular i.e. not a lot of people visit your site then you do not really require a lot of bandwidth, on a average a web site uses up only 500 MB of bandwidth per month. Or if your site is small but extremely popular then you might have to go for a web hosting package that offers high bandwidth.

On the other hand if your web site is huge, providing audio/video downloads, as well as being very popular then you would certainly require a huge amount of bandwidth. Let’s say you have a video file that is 150 MB in size and in a single day a 100 visitors download the file. This means that 15 GB of bandwidth will have been used. If you multiply that by 30 days for the month it comes to 450 GB.

The unlimited bandwidth controversy

For some time now a lot of hosting companies are supposedly providing "unlimited bandwidth" for their web hosting packages.

It’s absolutely true, you can have unlimited bandwidth. However, you will need an unlimited amount of money by your side! Jokes apart, if you ever come across such a host it would be best to turn around and run back the way you came from.

Just think, if you can get unlimited bandwidth for $25-30 a month then why aren’t big companies like Sun, Microsoft etc. not hosted there? In fact, why isn't everyone hosted there? For that matter, if unlimited is a standard feature then why don’t all the hosts offer it? Is it because it is expensive and requires better hardware? No, it’s because some hosts are honest and don’t give in to such gimmicks.

Statistically speaking, a T1 Internet connection (huge broadband) equals approximately 500GB per month and costs around $1200 per month. So how can it be possible to get the same or unlimited for $30 a month?

There are a lot of ways you can be duped by these ‘ unlimited’ hosts; here are just a few of them:

The secret of ‘unlimited’ is actually buried in the Terms of Service by the host. Do not be surprised to find that unlimited = 15 GB.

The host may restrict the sort of files that you can host on their server. Generally image galleries and audio/video files attract a lot more downloads thereby resulting in higher bandwidth consumption. So if there are no files of this type, your site won’t really require a lot of bandwidth.

Some newly opened hosts use it as a scam. They take your money and after a few months when their server starts to become slow or reaches its limit, they run… with your money!

Some hosts outline in their Terms of Service that you can have unlimited bandwidth as long as you qualify for it. i.e. Your site must use less then, let’s say 2 GB of bandwidth in order to qualify for the unlimited bandwidth feature. As soon as your site goes over that limit they either start charging you for it or cut off your downloads altogether.

In life it’s a universal truth that you always get what you pay for, and it’s no different for web hosting.

If a host is using a cheap advertising gimmick like ‘unlimited’ bandwidth they maybe lying about a few other things too. Their ‘dedicated’ support team could be a single person (the hosting provider itself in most cases) sitting in front of a computer and taking your calls.

Do you really want unlimited bandwidth hosting from hosts that have very limited resources at their disposal? Or, do you want to go for a host that has spent thousands of dollars on setting up a good network infrastructure, servers Psychology Articles, and a highly qualified and dedicated support team? The choice ultimately is yours and yours alone.

The Perils Of Hosting Unlimited Bandwidth

Hosting a web site requires two main resources; disk space and bandwidth. Here we look at hosting unlimited bandwidth, and when it can he helpful and when it can be a complete waste of time. There are two main resources that you always need to consider when deciding on your hosting supplier. The first is the amount of disk space that your hosting account will use, and the other is how much bandwidth you will need.

The use of disk space is pretty straight forward to understand. It is the amount of space on your hosts server that your web site files will take up. The larger your files; if they are photographs for example, or the larger the volume of files, the more disk space they will take up.

The other major resource that your we site will use, is known as bandwidth.

Many hosts will make a play on the amount of bandwidth they offer. Hosting unlimited bandwidth is fairly common place these days, meaning that you can do what you like on your site.

So what exactly is bandwidth and how can hosting unlimited bandwidth help you?

Bandwidth is how much usage your site visitors make of your site. When a visitor arrives at your site, they look at a web page, and the user's browsers reads and transfers the data from the host. This process uses system resources to make the transfer, and this type of resources is called bandwidth.

How long a user stays at your site also has an impact. They type of site you run is also a major influence. Hosting simple web pages alone will not use a great deal of resources. Hosting video files or music files for download, will.

The bottom line is that if your site is likely to be bandwidth hungry, then hosting unlimited bandwidth is going to be a good idea. If your site is a simple one, then hosting unlimited bandwidth is probably an extravagance that you could do without.

If you want to find a host that is completely flexible in catering for your needs Article Submission, read a web hosting review from a long time Internet marketer who know what he is talking about. Hosting unlimited bandwidth is one of many options available.

Unlimited Storage Space, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Domain Hosting

Storage space, bandwidth and domain hosting are vital to the success of the internet professional. In the old days of the Internet, it was tricky business with regards to how much it cost and what that cost afforded one in terms of value. And by "tricky," one could also mean "dangerous." With no clear ideas of usage or cost, an internet professional could be in store for a little nasty surprises when it came time to settle up on his bill. That was before hosting companies such as Fat Cow offered their all inclusive packages that opened up a world of possibilities. With unlimited storage, bandwidth and domain hosting, the account holder can make his deal upfront and agree exactly what to expect from current and future costs.

Unlimited storage helps because the longer that a web site stays internet, the more content and information it can amass. Having a place to keep records of peoples, content, and info, allows for a site's longevity in establishing its brand and keeping traffic coming in. With unlimited storage a site can undergo far too many changes over a long period of time without losing its effectiveness or becoming vulnerable to changing trends and technologies. Opportunities persist in this area for the internet pro.

Unlimited bandwidth allows one to keep traffic moving along smoothly from day to day while also enabling the site to investment into new areas of content delivery. Making use of video and audio files can consume heavy amounts of bandwidth, slowing down functionality and ultimately driving people off your site if you are ill prepared for the necessary usage. By engaging in an upfront plan for unlimited bandwidth, you create for your users a comfortable and rewarding experience every time they visit your site. And since it is included in your package, overage charges, which often skyrocket expenses, become a thing of the past.

Unlimited domain hosting may be the most useful of all for the internet professional. After all most people who make their living internet do so by using a number of different sites. By building a family of sites to offset poor performances, the individual protects his investments and his profits. Unlimited domain hosting allows you to move into a multitude of areas, securing the site names necessary for proper branding no matter what fields your specialties are in.

Before you sign up with a website hosting company, make sure you've read the fine print and you agree what you are getting in the overall deal. Purchasing an unlimited package, like those offered by Fat Cow, gives you a distinct advantage over the limitations of the Internet Find Article, leaving you to focus on the issues that matter for your web sites and your business.

Why Unlimited Storage Space Web Hosting Is Not Unlimited

You've heard a lot of talk in the website hosting community about unlimited storage, but what does that really mean, and does it truly exist? Each active site uses a certain degree of storage capacity. It's what keeps the vital data that makes the site run safe and secure. It's what allows them to handle greater amounts of web traffic. With unlimited storage, you can truly run a worry free site, and while many hosting companies claim to offer just that, the reality is far from the claim. Some website hosting companies only offer "unlimited storage" up to a certain point. After that, they will cut you off and force your site to stop functioning properly or they will charge higher rates for the overage amount that you use. Some sites claim they allow unlimited, but after you've used a certain amount they start to tamper with the effectiveness and speed of your site. Still others are the real deal, but they are fewer and further between.

How can you avoid the double talk and looking a plan that truly works for you? First, you have got to do the legwork involved with the company in question. Rather than go for more storage than what you need, looking a good clear idea of what you will be using and then approach each company for price quotes regarding that plan. Allow for possible overages when you are seeking out a price quote to avoid getting roped into a plan that has a lot of fine print, which ends up costing you more and more money.

After you've determined what you need as well as the cost for what you need, next you need to be checking against those surprise contingencies. Communicate often and regularly with the companies that you plan on doing business with and make sure what your data usage is at all times. Don’t just automatically buy in to the sales pitch they try to feed you. Know how usage works and how to monitor it in real time to avoid any costly mishaps. Also, discover out what the company does should you ever go over your plan. Do they have measures in place to warn you? Do they charge astronomically high rates for overages? These are questions that you need to looking to the bottom of before moving forward.

As the web grows more crowded, there will be more companies limiting your storage space. Some will choose an upfront approach, while others will do so underhandedly. It's important that, as a site owner Find Article, you stay on top of your rights and be aware of the details that are hiding in some of these too good to be true offers.