Web Hosting: How Much Bandwidth Does my Website Need?

When using the internet there are many factors that affect the speed of data which ultimately leads to slower or faster loading webpages. Bandwidth is an important factor that plays a major role in the speed at which data can be sent over your network. As your business expands, it is important to understand data-transfer requirements and how it affects the service you offer. Understanding bandwidth allows you to make more informed decision about you next website hosting plan. This article provides useful information to help you understand data-transfer and how to efficiently calculate the amount your website needs.

What Is Bandwidth?

Bandwidth in terms of website hosting is the maximum rate at which data can be transferred from a server to a user’s web browser in a given amount of time. Having a major effect on website hosting by limiting the amount of traffic your service can handle at any given time. This plays a major role in the speed at which your webpages load on your website for your users. Ensuring you have enough bandwidth is vital for fast hosting.

For fast hosting, select the bandwidth option best suited to handle the traffic on your website. For example, if one user’s connection takes 50 Mbps and you have 100 GB of bandwidth you can handle a maximum of 5,000 users on your website at one time. By the 2,500 user mark connections to the site will slow down as data-transfer is limited. Indicating its time to upgrade. This example should not be used to calculate your bandwidth usage.

How Does Bandwidth Affect Website Hosting?

Bandwidth restricts the amount of data your website hosting can handle in the form of traffic from users at one time. Simply put your website can only handle a certain number of users on your website at one time. As your website expands and grows your traffic increases. At some point your website hosting will not be able to handle all the traffic resulting in slower loading webpages for the user. This can have negative consequences as webpages will load slowly making users more likely to leave reducing conversion rates. If your traffic increases this may slow down your website and this is when we would recommended that you upgrade your bandwidth.

How Does Bandwidth Affect My VPS?

Having too little bandwidth can negatively affect your Virtual Private Server (VPS). It restricts the amount of traffic the virtual server processes at a given time. Having fewer resources than you need will lead to a slow performing server that takes time sending data. Having adequate resources for data transmission ensures that your VPS runs more efficiently. Aim to get the balance in the middle. If your virtual server handles low amounts of traffic you will not require a large amount of bandwidth. If your VPS handles a lot of traffic or frequently receive or sends large files we recommended upgrading your bandwidth to keep up with traffic. Ensuring your server has enough bandwidth helps with fast hosting. Ultimately leading to an improved faster responding webpage. Learn the difference between Reseller Hosting and VPS Hosting here!

How To Calculate Your Data Transmission Rate.

When selecting the best virtual private server hosting package, knowing your data transfer requirement is very important. It can help you make more informed decisions regarding selecting a hosting plan. It also reduces the risks of purchasing the wrong service.

To help you calculate your data transmission rate we recommend following these easy steps. Over a period of time repeat these steps and take an average from all results for the most average result.

• Estimate the average page size (In KiloBytes) on your website by using programs such as PingDom to reduce time. Also, consider the images, scripts and files that your website uses as this affect bandwidth.
• Take the average amount of visitors you receive within a month’s period and multiply by the average page size. This gives you insights into the average file-transfer requirement for each visitor per webpage.
• Calculate the number of pages the average visitor visits. Taking this amount and multiple by the value from the previous step. This gives you an idea of how many pages your visitor use, giving you feedback on how well you site is currently converting.

Following these steps will produce an average figure indicating the amount of bandwidth you are currently consuming. It is important to aim for more than you need. This guarantees that your site will always have enough resources for the fastest data transfers and the fast load speeds.

When Do I Need Too Upgrade My Bandwidth?

To prevent wasting money, we recommend you calculate your current data-transfer usage using the steps above. This information can help you to know when to upgrade from a given hosting plan. It really helps with making informed decisions in an area that can be hard to judge. Upgrading bandwidth is a long-term investment for your hosting that can increase monthly costs. High-performing site attracts more customers. The more access users have to data and the faster they can get this information the better. Therefore, consideration of file-transfer should always be at the forefront of needs before selecting any hosting plan. Having too little means it is worth upgrading.

Using the result from the calculation above compare with the amount of bandwidth you currently have available to what you are using. Consider the total amount that you have and how much is left over? If there is a significant amount of bandwidth left over you don’t need to worry about upgrading just yet. If there is little to none left, then you need to upgrade to guarantee fast hosting and fast website load times for your users.

I Offer Downloading. Do I Need More Bandwidth?

When offering the option to download files for your users it is important to calculate bandwidth. If the files that users’ download are large then you will need more resources. With low-bandwidth if a user downloads your files it may prevent pages from displaying or loading correctly. Leaving your website unusable until the download is finished.

Summary

Knowing how bandwidth affects your hosting will allow you make more informed decisions on website hosting. Consequently, enabling you to experience faster hosting with excellent page load speeds for your users. Remember, it is better to have adequate resources. So, understanding your requirements will help you to avoid having website delays and a slow performing website.