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.

Many people get confused about how to translate the sizes but an easy way to remember it is that one byte is the equivalent of eight bits. The next step up is 1 kilobyte and this is the equivalent of 1024 bytes.

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.

Work out how much bandwidth you require.

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.

To ensure the best use of your site, many website owners decide to offer a larger amount of bandwidth and an equation for this would be:

[(Daily Visitors x Page Views x Page Size) + (Daily File Downloads x File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor

Note: The above calculations all use an average figure to obtain the most relevant return.

Links between website traffic and bandwidth usage:

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.

How to cut down bandwidth usage?

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.

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.

Some bandwidth tips:

* Always keep an estimation of the number of visiting or can visit your page in future. A monthly estimation is always beneficial.

* It may be possible to purchase a meter free bandwidth facility. This facility may feature a higher than usual cost compared to a limited bandwidth provision but clearly there is no risk of going beyond a pre-set limit. The bandwidth rating is contained on your control panel but it will not be continually assessed by your web host.

* When altering your website, ensure you make a note of the changes to allow your estimates to be up to date and more accurate.

* If you can, keep the number of visitors comments to a minimum. You may wish to allow only pre-approved or carefully selected comments onto your site.

* Be sure to communicate regularly with your web provider and seek their advice on how best to maintain or improve your website. Not every change will lead to a rise in the amount of bandwidth your site uses but there can be positive impacts as well. By removing any files that are no longer deemed necessary can free up bandwidth to be used for other purposes.

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

* 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:

Your web host provider is a great source of ideas and information. This is why finding the best one to forge a partnership with can make a huge difference to your site. There are so many different issues that will affect your bandwidth that choosing the right provider can inform you of what is right for you. One issue that is becoming more of a threat is bandwidth theft. It is regularly used by other websites and it is the process of using another sites graphics and pictures by linking to them. This is illegal and should not be undertaken under any circumstances. Some web host providers may tell a new user that it is okay to do this but you should never commit bandwidth theft. You can benefit from having a level of knowledge before you start discussions with your web host so doing some research is a great start. Knowing a little bit about the subject will help you greatly but be sure to listen to the technical tips and tricks that a bandwidth provider may be able to tell you to reduce your bandwidth usage.

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This article is published with permission from WebHostingMadness.com, a publisher of web hosting company reviews, comparisons and detailed articles about web hosting.

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