Bandwidth
is a term that has several different meanings depending
on the context. When talking about bandwidth in terms
of Web Hosting it refers to the amount of data that
transfers into and out of your web hosting account.
Incoming data can include requests for web pages, email,
FTP requests, and FTP uploads, while outgoing data includes
file transfers, web pages, and email. Each hosting account
is allocated a certain amount of bandwidth per month.
Common figures for bandwidth range from 3 GB for small
personal sites up to 200 GB for large business systems.
How
much bandwidth do you need? This depends on the amount
of traffic your website receives as well as the content.
Web pages made up of text and a few pictures are very
small in size but if you get thousands of visitors each
day you may need a lot of bandwidth. On the other hand
website content consisting of downloadable files such
as software, music or video is much larger in size,
so even if your traffic is fairly low you may need extra
bandwidth.
The
best way to calculate the amount of bandwidth you need
is to calculate the size of your downloadable content
and multiply by the number of visitors you receive each
month. Add to that the number of emails sent and received
and other content such as FTP uploads. The figure you
come up with should be pretty accurate because it is
unlikely that every visitor to your site is going to
download every file or view every page. This will give
you a bit of margin to play with.
As
your web site grows and as you receive more traffic
you may have to increase your bandwidth allotment accordingly.
It is better to plan ahead and arrange with your web
host for a larger hosting package rather than wait until
you go over your limit. Check with your host to see
what their policy is in regards to exceeding your bandwidth.
Some will allow you to go over by a certain amount while
others will shut down your site and demand that you
upgrade your account before resuming service. It is
always best to keep track of how much bandwidth you
are using and anticipate when you need to upgrade.
If
you feel that you have sufficient bandwidth and would
prefer not to upgrade you may be able to 'throttle'
traffic if you are approaching your monthly limit. Some
hosts offer this service as a way to limit incoming
requests or to exclude requests once a certain number
has been reached.
