A common mistake made by so many people when looking to choose a web host company is not asking about bandwidth. After spending so long designing or with a developer designing your web site you do not want to see a good web site ruined and only viewed by a handful of people at a time. A web site is generally your shop window and you want as many people as possible to look in and hopefully click on your information or purchase online if you are offering products. All web host companies will offer you a limited amount of bandwidth, it’s then up to you to calculate whether or not you need to pay a little extra for bandwidth you may require.

Don’t be afraid to ask for advice from the web host company, it is there job to help you along the way and after all it’s you who is paying for there service. You will need to advice them as to how big each page is on your website and if possible a rough calculation as to how many people you think may view your site on a weekly or daily basis.

Is it possible to save bandwidth?

Yes it is and this comes into play at the time of designing your website. If you are looking to save the bandwidth you should put all photos in the JPEG format and all graphics in GIF format. By doing so you are compressing the files using only the very least bandwidth required.

Why do some companies offer only a very limited amount of bandwidth?

You have got to remember that web hosting is an extensive market and very profitably for the web hosting company. The more people they can attract to their services the more profit they make. They in turn have to pay out to the telecoms companies for the bandwidth provided to them and are only wanting to pay the bare amount to keep profits high. Web host companies that are not offering you the additional bandwidth are the ones to avoid. If they say it is not possible to purchase additional bandwidth, then the chances are this is a small company with poor technology behind them operating on a shoestring budget.

What will happen if I do not have enough bandwidth?

It’s very simply really, if your website has not got enough bandwidth to operate with, one of two things will happen. Your website will download onto peoples monitors very slowly and the chances are they will not wait around. The second problem is that your web site may only be viewed by a very limited audience at one time. You may have great link backs from other websites driving traffic your way only for that traffic to be diverted elsewhere to a properly functioning competitor.

How can I ensure that this will not happen to me?

Undoubtedly it is very frustrating to spend time and money developing a good informative website only to have it’s viewing reduced by lack of bandwidth. You need to be honest with your web host company and tell them the number of pages and how large your overall files are, by doing this the onus is on them to offer us the service your require. You can ask for a guarantee from the web host company that all will be fine with your site and there are many out there willing to give such guarantees. If you decide to go it cheap and risk the low bandwidth you are only fooling yourself. Look at the rates from the different web host companies for extra bandwidth and you will be pleasantly surprised that it will not cost an arm and a leg to have a little extra. Knowingly going over bandwidth with only cost you revenue in the long run and makes your website very unprofessional. If you are hosting with a reliable web host company they will not allow this happen anyway.

If you are unsure as to how large your website actually is act the person or company who developed the site for you to advise or simply ask the web host company, all will be happy to oblige you.

About the Author
Declan Tobin is a successful freelance writer providing advice to consumers on purchasing a variety of Affordable Web Hosting and Cheap web hosting, and more! His numerous articles provide a wonderfully researched resource of interesting and relevant information.

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 hoster 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, and a highly qualified and dedicated support team? The choice ultimately is yours and yours alone.

Ashish Jain
M6.Net Web Helpers
http://www.m6.net

Every time someone views a web page or downloads a file, bandwidth ? also known as data transfer – is used. How much is used depends on the size of the page or file that is being viewed or downloaded. Essentially, the amount of bandwidth that your web site will need depends on two key factors: (1) Web site content and file size (2) Web site traffic/popularity. Let’s look at a few web site examples to get an idea of what their bandwidth requirements might be, and why.

Let’s start with web sites that have high-bandwidth requirements. If you have a web site that has large-sized content and gets a huge amount of traffic, you’re going to need a lot of bandwidth. An example of a web site that requires a lot of bandwidth would be http://www.compfused.com/ This web site is comprised of thousands of pages, and almost all of those pages are packed with images and video clips. Simply viewing the pages uses a lot of bandwidth, and of course downloading the video clips uses a TON of bandwidth. Combine this with the fact that this web site probably gets tens of thousands of visitors per day and you can see that its bandwidth requirements are quite extensive.

At the other end of the spectrum we have low-bandwidth web sites. A good example of a web site that requires a relatively low amount of bandwidth is my own site http://www.webhostingdiscounts.net/ Take a good look around this site and you’ll notice that its layout is very simple ? this simple design is intentional to ensure fast page loads. My web site has about 20 pages total, and most of those pages are pure text, and therefore have a very small file size. Even though I get a good amount of traffic to this web site, its bandwidth requirements are very low because all the files that are viewed are very small and require very little bandwidth to serve up. My web site can get thousands of visitors per day and not break a sweat.

Now that we’ve looked at examples of high and low-bandwidth web sites, it’s probably a good time for me to mention that many web sites on the Internet fall into neither of these categories. Rather, your average web site is more of a medium-bandwidth web site, meaning that it is a cross between the high and low-bandwidth web sites that we discussed above. Pinpointing the optimal bandwidth for medium-bandwidth web sites can be difficult, but with proper planning you should be able to get pretty close.

The average web site contains a mix of text and images throughout its pages, and may or may not offer files for download. The average web site also gets average traffic, meaning anywhere from 50-500 visitors per day. Assuming these factors, a hosting plan with anywhere from 3-5 gigabytes (GB) of data transfer per month should suffice. For sites that get more than 500 visitors per day, or those that offer numerous large files for download, it may be wise to secure a hosting plan with 50 gigabytes of data transfer per month ? or more. It is important to note that most web hosts quote your allotted bandwidth in “per month” terms, when in fact that number is actually broken down to a “per day” limit. For example: one web site of mine has 125GB of allotted bandwidth/data transfer per month. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? It is. However, in reality that equates to about 4.2GB of bandwidth per day. One day, several months ago, I made a large (12 megabyte) video available for download on this web site. It received over 400 downloads within the first two hours! That amounted to 4800 megabytes (MB) of data transfer, or 4.8 gigabytes. You guessed it, I exceeded my daily bandwidth allowance and my site was disabled for 24 hours. Lesson learned? Either order more bandwidth or adjust my web site content to fall within my bandwidth limitations. Not wanting to pony up the dough and purchase more bandwidth, I removed the video.

While we’re on the topic of daily bandwidth limits, I’d also like to point out that if you’re hosting with a free host ? such as Yahoo! Geocities ? prepare for bandwidth limitations of just 3-5 megabytes per day. This means that you won’t be hosting any video clips or large downloads for long. I once had a web site hosted with Geocities that consisted of just one page ? one single page. The page was filled with tons of sports car images both big and small. Once my site started to get 100 visitors per day, even that amount of traffic caused me to exceed my daily bandwidth limit. As a result, my site was shut down almost every day, for a period of several months, due to continually exceeding my daily bandwidth limit.

The point I am trying to make with this article is that with proper preparation and web site design, you can ensure that you always have enough bandwidth to go around. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1) When building a new web site, try to make the pages as small (file size) as possible. There are many free tools out there that will tell you the size of your pages and can also compress them to make them more compact.

2) When using images on your web site, try not to go crazy ? keep the number of images to a minimum. If you must use tons of images, try a .jpeg or .gif compression tool to make the images as small as possible.

3) Make a concerted effort not to offer too many files for download. If for some reason you feel that you need to offer hundreds of downloadable files, try to select ones that are small (1-2 megs) in size.

By following the tips above, you’ll be able to more accurately predict your bandwidth needs based on your web site content and estimated traffic. Obviously these tips are only general guidelines ? the true test is launching your web site and carefully observing and monitoring your bandwidth usage patterns for several months. Inevitably you may need to alter your web site layout/content from time to time to stay within your monthly bandwidth limits. Better yet, if your site becomes so popular that you really do need more bandwidth, simply order more bandwidth from your existing web host or switch to a host that provides more generous monthly data transfer. As your web site grows in size and popularity, sufficient bandwidth will always be a concern, but, such is the price of success!

Marc Eberhart is an IT Project Manager, webmaster, and all-around Internet junkie. His web site http://www.webhostingdiscounts.net/ offers visitors 40% off web hosting plans with top-rated hosting companies.

How much bandwidth will your website use?

With so much variation among web hosting companies, it can sometimes be difficult to know how much bandwidth your website will need. So, how much is a gigabyte of bandwidth anyway? Let’s put it in perspective. If an average web page, images and all is 50 kilobytes in size, your website could be viewed 20,000 times! For the average hobby website, that is more than enough. Let’s further put that 20,000 in perspective. If each visitor to your website viewed an average of 4 pages per month, it would still represent over 5,000 unique visitors to your website every month. Now if your website has lots of pictures on it though, then one gigabyte of bandwidth will allow for fewer visitors.

Beware of bandwidth usage when offering file downloads

While offering simple web pages doesn’t use up much bandwidth, the same can’t be said about downloading files. If you plan on allowing people to download music files, pdf files, flash files, or video files, you can eat up bandwidth in a hurry even with a relatively small number of people visiting your website. If your website offers an adobe .pdf file that is 1 megabyte in size, with one gigabyte of bandwidth, you will only be able to serve up one thousand downloads. This does not including the html needed to get people to download the pdf in the first place.

Video files eat up even more space. A one megabyte video file represents only seconds of video. For a half hour presentation, your video file could easily be over two hundred megabytes in size! At that size, one gigabyte would only allow you to offer five downloads to your visitors. What you plan to do with your website most definitely will affect how much monthly bandwidth you anticipate needing.

Overselling bandwidth is common in the web hosting industry

Because more people use only a fraction of their allotted bandwidth per month, most web hosting providers price their plans knowing that most people will only use a fraction of the resources available to them. In fact, with most companies, if you did use the maximum bandwidth available to you each month, you would most likely be shut down. If you go with a shared hosting account, your website can be hosted with hundreds or thousands of other websites. If your website starts to use a significant portion of the server’s resources, you may find them pulling the plug on your website. If you know your website is going to need significant resources, you should probably consider getting yourself a dedicated server or at the very least look for assurances in writing that your web hosting provider will honor your bandwidth needs.

Knowing what you plan to do will allow you to know how much you need

By knowing what you plan to do with your hosting account, you can have a pretty good idea of how much bandwidth you’re going to need. If you anticipate that you will be needing to serve lots of multimedia including video, music and large amounts of flash powered pages, you may need to consider going with a dedicated server. If your website is just starting out and you have little money and no real idea of how much bandwidth you’re going to need, pick a company that gives you more than you think you’ll need at a reasonable price. Make sure you also find out how much they will charge you for any bandwidth you use above and beyond what comes in your hosting package. If it is one dollar per megabyte and you’ve already exceeded a twenty gigabyte bandwidth limit, changes are, you’ll get one hefty bill at the end of the month. When shopping around and looking at bandwidth, keep the overage cost in mind as well and you’ll do fine.

This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a web hosting company that strives to make it easy to setup and maintain your website. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely as long as you link back to my website from this resource box.