| There are numerous hosting options out there. Most of | | | | this same person visits your website again, most likely |
| the time, one corporation is also offering several plans | | | | the cache session is over and that person will take |
| where the bandwidths are different one and another. | | | | another 50Kb bandwidths from you. |
| Normally, the more the better. However, if you are in a | | | | Simply put, if you are expecting 250 people visit and |
| very tight budget, you might want to understand | | | | refresh your main page in a day, you need to prepare: |
| exactly how much bandwidth is enough for your | | | | 250 people x 30 days x 50Kb = 375,000Kb or 375Mb |
| website. | | | | bandwidth. Notice that the counting above only includes |
| There is no easy way to foretell a bandwidth usage. | | | | one webpage of your website. If you expect each |
| Most search engines, like Google or Yahoo, use robots | | | | visitor to visits 5 web pages of your website, you |
| to visit your website and these robots use different | | | | need to prepare: 375Mb x 5 web pages = 1,875Mb or |
| bandwidth compared to human visitors. Website that | | | | 1.875 GB, which is almost 2 GB bandwidth. Also, that |
| use database might use different bandwidth compared | | | | bandwidth counting is only from human visitors, you |
| to website with no database. However, let's do an | | | | also need to put search engines robots into |
| easy counting to try to foretell the usage of your | | | | consideration. You could perhaps expect one robot to |
| bandwidth. | | | | visit your page once a month or once a month or |
| To foretell your bandwidth, you need to build the | | | | even once a day if your website is that good. That |
| website first. You then need to be aware of the size | | | | means the 1.875 GB could roughly be rounded to 2 GB |
| of each and every file. (html, image, flash, etc) If you | | | | while taking search engine robots into consideration. |
| haven't built your website, the prediction will become | | | | You also need to pay attention that the example |
| inaccurate as you will also need to predict how much | | | | above is only assuming that you will have 250 visitors |
| disk space is taken by each and every file. If you | | | | a day or 7,500 visitors a month. In general, for a |
| haven't built your website it means that you are | | | | website to be counted as a working website, most |
| creating prediction based on prediction, not based on | | | | people will agree that 100,000 visitors a month is the |
| fact. | | | | minimum. With that number, you need to plan: 100,000 |
| OK, let's get dirty. | | | | visitors x 50Kb x 5 pages = 25,000,000 Kb or 25 GB |
| Let's assume your main page is an html file with a size | | | | bandwidths each month. If your website is an |
| of 5Kb. In that page you put 2 images, the header | | | | advanced website with lots of graphics and flash |
| banner is 25Kb and the footer graphic is 10Kb. You | | | | animations to make the website more beautiful, you |
| also put a flash animation in the middle of the page | | | | need 200Kb for each webpage. Thus making the |
| with 10Kb in size. That means in total, your main page | | | | bandwidth 4 times bigger or 100 GB bandwidths |
| takes 50Kb. So, what's next? | | | | needed each and every month. If you are successful, |
| That means when a person visits your main page, that | | | | you could have 500,000 visitors or more each month |
| person takes 50Kb bandwidths. Most browsers will | | | | and that will make the number even bigger. |
| have a cache feature turned on. When the person | | | | In summary, the bandwidth you need to run your |
| visits your site, the browser downloads the contents, all | | | | website successfully could be foretold beforehand. |
| 50Kb of them, to the person hard drive. If the person | | | | Several main factors you need to take into |
| refreshes the browser, more often than not, the | | | | consideration while counting bandwidth are: number of |
| content will be taken from the cache. This means that | | | | visitors each month, the total size of your pages, and |
| person does not take any bandwidth for this action. | | | | how many pages you have on your website. You also |
| Nevertheless, if the cache session is over and the | | | | need to prepare additional bandwidth for search |
| person refreshes the browser, that person is taking | | | | engines robots visit and several additional bandwidths |
| another 50Kb bandwidths from you. Thus, from that | | | | that are taken when you use database such as |
| one person, you need to prepare 100Kb. If tomorrow | | | | MySQL. |