How To Reduce Web Hosting Bandwidth

 How To Reduce Web Hosting Bandwidth
Copyright 2002 by Herman Drost

You just received a higher than normal monthly bill on your
credit card for web hosting. Your hosting company explains
that you exceeded your monthly minimum for “bandwidth
usage” and suggests reducing the size of your web site
files.

What is bandwidth usage?
What does bandwidth mean?
How much bandwidth do you need?
How can you reduce bandwidth usage?

Let’s discuss each of these topics in more depth.

What is “bandwidth usage?”
This refers to the total amount of information that has been
served to your web site visitors each month. Every file on
your Web Site has a specific size (e.g. 22K). Every time a
visitor downloads that file, your bandwidth usage goes up
by that amount.

The larger the file, the higher the bandwidth usage when
it is downloaded. The more traffic to your site, the more
bandwidth you will use.

What does “bandwidth” mean?
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transmitted
in a fixed amount of time. The “data transfer rate” is the speed
with which data can be transmitted from one device to another.
Data rates are often measured in megabits (million bits) or
megabytes (million bytes) per second.
These are usually abbreviated as Mbps and Mbps, respectively.

Bits and Bytes
8 bits = 1 byte.
1,024 bytes = 1 kilobyte (Kb).
1,024 kilobytes (Kb) = 1 megabyte (mb or meg)
1,024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte (gb or gig)

How much bandwidth do I need?
To determine how much bandwidth you need, estimate the
file size of each web page, and then multiply it by the number
of pages on your web site.

Multiply this figure by the number of the number of page
views you expect per month from your site.

For example, if your web page consists of two 15Kb images
and 3Kb of html, you would have 33Kb of data for that
page. Now multiply this by the number of page views you
expect to have per month (e.g. 100,000 per month). This
would mean 3.3Gb of data needs to be transferred per month
for that page.

Now recalculate this number for each page, and you’ll know
approximately how much bandwidth your entire site requires.

How can you reduce bandwidth usage?
The easy way is to reduce the size of the files on your site,
particularly images and other graphics. For example, you have
a large image (i.e. 200KB) on your web page that is downloaded
by each visitor every time the page is requested. If you
reduce this image to 20KB or remove it altogether, it will
dramatically cut your bandwidth usage. It will also speed
up your site’s performance.

For more information on optimizing images for the Web, read
my article, “Preparing Images for Your Web Site”,
(www.isitebuild.com/imageoptimization2).

Web Sites that have MP3s to download, movies, music playing
in the background and large images, will obviously have a
higher bandwidth. Large web sites or sites that expect a
lot of traffic, will also use a lot.

If your site has mainly html pages and small images, your
bandwidth will not be that high.

Bandwidth Tools
Monitoring bandwidth
http://www.utoronto.ca/ucres/netup.htm

Web Page Checker
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/page_size.cgi

Tuning up your Web Site
http://websitegarage.netscape.com/

Bandwidth Tips
If you make changes to your site by adding
more files and/or web pages, recalculate your web site
file size.

Estimate how many visitors will be accessing your web pages
over the next few months.

Recalculate the bandwidth usage for your site. You may need
more web space and bandwidth for your site to function
effectively.

Check with your web hosting company to upgrade your
hosting plan.

Conclusion
Now you can avoid the shock of exceeding your
monthly bandwidth usage and paying higher hosting fees.
You are now ready to receive more traffic to your site and
therefore make more sales.
===========================================================

About the Author

Herman Drost is a Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner
and author of iSiteBuild.com
Site Design and Low Cost Hosting from $30/year.
(http://www.isitebuild.com)

Subscribe to the “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more
original articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com.
Insert “Subscribe Me” in the subject line.

 Herman Drost

More Articles 

The only LEGIT way I found to make money on the net... - Dave Martin
Hey there... Let's get right to the point: as Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) said in 'Wall Street' (1987) "The most valuable resource I know of is information". Now lets face it - when you possess the knowledge to make SERIOUS money, life is...

Web Site Hosting Plan - Key Elements - Brian Thorn
What are the key elements in a good web host package? The answer to that question depends mainly on the service you expect from the web host provider. To decide what you need, you'll need to have at least a brief understanding of the typical...

Web Hosting: To Switch or to Stay? - Joelene Wickens Orlando
That’s a question that can only be answered by you. Depending on your current status and relationship you have with your provider, along with your evolving business objectives and needs, can determine what course of action to pursue. What are...

Website hosting in the UK - Stephen Hill
Once you have a website you then need to think about hosting your site. There are many hosting companies offering different fees, therefore it can be quite difficult in finding the best deal. There are many avenues to explore to find this best...

7 Key Ingredients for Rock Solid Website Hosting - Michael Turner
Every website needs a great web host, however when you are looking online for a host you may be overwhelmed with the wide variety available ranging from absolutely free to relatively expensive. How do you know what you need and what is the best...

Web hosting Basics - Steve Ashton
So you're about to embark on your first web project and you're wondering where on earth to start? Well, one of the first things you'll need is a web hosting package. There are so many out there it can seem daunting to try and choose one. In this...

Choosing the Perfect Deluxe Web Site Hosting Plan - Gary Gresham
If you are looking for a deluxe web site hosting plan there are some important considerations before you make a choice. Everyone has different needs so what is deluxe for you might be completely different for someone else. You want to end up with a...

Attracting Extra Web Hosting Customers By Targeting Cities, i.e. New York Web Hosting - Rodney Ringler
Web hosting companies are constantly on the lookout to find new ways to attract visitors to their websites. One avenue that many web hosts miss is targeting visitors who are searching for web hosting by city, such as New York Web Hosting, by state,...

Home Business; Paid vs Free Hosting for Your Website - Brian Beshore
The thing about free hosting and free auto responders is, you will likely have to put up with a lot of advertising (not your own) put there by the host. This is also why I don’t believe in banner exchanges. You are working hard enough to get...

Web Hosts: Helping Us Navigate Through This Future Techno-World - Jesse S Somer
Computers, Internet, Web sites…what do they all mean? Hey, you’re probably not a technophobe, I mean you own a microwave right? Just push a few buttons and the food cooks itself-easy. Now, they tell you the best way to share information, have a...

Web Hosting: Shared or Dedicated - Which Should You Choose? - Russ Mate
Before you begin your search for a web host you should first determine whether you need shared web hosting or dedicated web hosting. A shared web hosting account is an account on a web server that hosts other shared accounts. The number of...

Web Developers can be successful Web Hosting resellers - Candice Humbley
By becoming a reseller, not only can web developers create websites for their clients, but they can provide their clients web hosting, as another studio service. All you need to become a reseller, is to find a web host who: offers multiple website...