Bandwidth Hosting
Every time you visit a website, you generate traffic because, to view that web page on your computer, it must first be downloaded to your computer (between the website and you), and then displayed using your browser software. This page is simply a file that generates traffic, similar to the MP3 file in the previous example, although the web page is often much smaller than the music file.
A web page can be very small or very large, depending on the amount of information and the amount and quality of images included. The main page measuring 70-200KB is still classified as having a normal size.
How Much Bandwidth is Ideal?
Depending on, because bandwidth is a significant determinant of the price of a hosting plan, you should take the time to determine how much is right for you. Almost all hosting plans have bandwidth requirements that are measured in months, so you need to estimate the amount of bandwidth your site will need each month
If you do not intend to provide the ability to download files from your site, the formula for calculating bandwidth is quite easy:
Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size x 31 x Fudge Factor
If you intend to allow people to download files from your site, your bandwidth calculation should be:
[(Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size) + (Average Daily File Downloads x Average File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor
Let’s check each item in the formula:
Average Daily Visitors – The number of people you expect to visit your site, on average, each day. Depending on how you market your site, this number can range from 1 to 1,000,000.
Average Page Views – On average, the number of web pages you expect someone to see. If you have 50 web pages on your website, the average person may only see those 5 pages each time they visit.
Average Page Size – The average size of your web page, in Kilobytes (KB). If you have designed your site, you can calculate it directly.
Average Daily File Downloads – The number of downloads you expect to occur on your site. It is a function of the number of visitors and the number of times visitors download files, on average, each day.
Average File Size – The average file size of files that can be downloaded from your site. As with your web pages, if you already know which files can be downloaded, you can count them directly.
Fudge Factor – A number greater than 1. Using 1.5 would be safer, which assumes that your estimate misses 50%. However, if you are very unsure, you can use 2 or 3 to ensure that your bandwidth needs are more than met.
Typically, hosting plans offer bandwidth in Gigabytes (GB) per month. This is why in the formula take the daily average and multiply it by 31.
Summary
Most personal or small company websites will not use more than 1GB of monthly bandwidth. If your website consists of static web pages and you expect minimal traffic regularly, choose a low bandwidth plan. If you exceed the amount of bandwidth allocated in your plan, your hosting provider may charge a usage fee, therefore if you anticipate a high volume of visitors to your site, you should run the above calculations to estimate the amount of bandwidth required in the hosting plan.
