Cheap Web Hosting - Web Hosting Data Transfer: How Much Is Too Much?

Web Hosting Data Transfer: How Much Is Too Much?

Cheap Web Hosting!
Unmetered Traffic & Space
Unlimited Domains
Unbeatable Pricing
Unlimited Web Hosting

Bandwidth in its simplest terms refers to the amount of data that flows across a network wire in a given time period. For most web hosting providers, that time period is measured in a month. Web hosting providers are charged a certain amount per month or per year for an allocated amount of bandwidth from backbone providers and wholesale data centers. That cost is then passed on to the consumer in the form of web hosting plans.

How much bandwidth will my website use?

With so much variation among web hosting companies, it can sometimes be difficult to know how much bandwidth your website will need. So, how much is a gigabyte of bandwidth anyway? Let's put it in perspective. If an average web page, images and all is 50 kilobytes in size, your website could be viewed 20,000 times! For the average hobby website, that is more than enough. Let's further put that 20,000 in perspective. If each visitor to your website viewed an average of 4 pages per month, it would still represent over 5,000 unique visitors to your website every month.

Beware of bandwidth usage when offering file downloads

While offering simple web pages doesn't use up much bandwidth, the same can't be said about downloading files. If you plan on allowing people to download music files, pdf files, flash files, or video files, you can eat up bandwidth in a hurry even with a relatively small number of people visiting your website. If your website offers an adobe .pdf file that is 1 megabyte in size, with one gigabyte of bandwidth, you will only be able to serve up one thousand downloads. This does not including the html needed to get people to download the pdf in the first place.

Video files eat up even more space. A one megabyte video file represents only seconds of video. For a half hour presentation, your video file could easily be over two hundred megabytes in size! At that size, one gigabyte would only allow you to offer five downloads to your visitors. What you plan to do with your website most definitely will affect how much monthly bandwidth you anticipate needing.

Overselling bandwidth is common in the web hosting industry

Because more people use only a fraction of their allotted bandwidth per month, most web hosting providers price their plans knowing that most people will only use a fraction of the resources available to them. In fact, with most companies, if you did use the maximum bandwidth available to you each month, you would most likely be shut down. If you go with a shared hosting account, your website can be hosted with hundreds or thousands of other websites. If your website starts to use a significant portion of the server's resources, you may find them pulling the plug on your website. If you know your website is going to need significant resources, you should probably consider getting yourself a dedicated server.

Knowing what you plan to do will allow you to know how much you need

By knowing what you plan to do with your hosting account, you can have a pretty good idea of how much bandwidth you're going to need. If you anticipate that you will be needing to serve lots of multimedia including video, music and large amounts of flash powered pages, you may need to consider going with a dedicated server. If your website is just starting out and you have little money and no real idea of how much bandwidth you're going to need, pick a company that gives you more than you think you'll need at a reasonable price. Make sure you also find out how much they will charge you for any bandwidth you use above and beyond what comes in your hosting package. If it is one dollar per megabyte and you've already exceeded a twenty gigabyte bandwidth limit, changes are, you'll get one hefty bill at the end of the month. When shopping around and looking at bandwidth, keep the overage cost in mind as well and you'll do fine.

This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a web hosting company that strives to make it easy to setup and maintain your website. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely as long as you link back to my website from this resource box.

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

How Multiple Server Hosting Impacts Your Websites Uptime
This article describes the technology behind multiple server hosting and how you may utilize it to maximize your site's security and uptimeHosting of web sites has essentially...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)

Useful Tips When Applying For A Web Host Provider
Once you have considered the design for your website and it is ready to be hosted, there are some matters to be considered when choosing the adequate web host:I - Accessibility of the site?Once you have appl...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)

How To Host Several Websites Under One Account
If you operate several websites, each with its own domain name, signing up of separate hosting accounts can be an expensive proposition. Even if your hosting company offers the add-on domain feature (which will allow you to add different domains to the same hosting account) you will be charged a monthly fee for each domain you add, sometimes costing almost the same as your full hosting fee.The solution is to op...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)

How To Choose A Hosting Web Package Cheap
If you're looking for a hosting web package cheap there are many things to consider. To find a hosting web package cheap you really need to do your homework and search the internet for the right host for you. But beware, just because a company might offer a hosting web package cheap you really need to look at what the package offers.Check the Disk Space. Many companies offering a hosting web package cheap may only give you a limited amount of Disk Space like 100 or 150 MB(megabytes). That's O.K. if you're building a site to let friends see and...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)

Sender Policy Framework (spf) ? How To Use It To Fight Email Forgery
Spam is a real problem today. Forged email is a big part of the spam problem. Have you ever received a spam email from yourself? How many times have you received an email you know to be spam from someone only to find out it came from an invalid email address? When you try to block the email by ...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)

Best Web Hosting Company - Find The Most Affordable Host
If you're creating a community web site or a business web site, one of the first things on your agenda will be finding good, dependable, affordable web hosting for your site. In most cases, a free hosting service isn't going to work. You'll quickly discover that there's a wide range of prices in what's considered affordable, and in what services come with your web hosting package.What to look for in an affordable web hosting packageBefore you make any decisions, it's important that you know what you'll need. Sit down and plan what you'll be using your web site for, and what your server will need to provide for you in order for you to do it. As an example, if you plan to host a w...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)

Free Web Hosting Tips
1. The reliability of the service and their offers.A brand new hosting provider which boasts features that are too good to be true usually won't last for too long. Let's take the example of one host (I won't give names here) that went offline only a few weeks ago. They were offering 500MB of storage, 10GB of bandwidth per month, domain hosting, unlimited domain parking, CPanel with just about all possible features, absolutely no ads (not even a request to link back), and this only for 150 posts in their forum. Sounds too good to be true? Betcha! After they cashed in two fat checks from AdSense they simply went offline. No prior notice, no apology, nothing.Things to watch out for:- Design. If the site looks like it was bought from a man in a white van, or if it's using a design from a free...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)

Web Hosts - Not All Are Created Equal
Many people think that all web hosts offer the same level of service within a certain price point. This could not be further from the truth. Fundamentally web hosting is web hosting but when you compare apples to apples you will find a broad range of differences that may or may not be a detriment to your business. Surprisingly the same web host provider that charges $5/month may have a direct competitor that charges $10/month for a comparable service plan. Below are 3 simple steps to help you determine what provider will best fit for your needs and where to find them.1. Determine Your Price PointLet's face it; the bottom line is usually at the top of the list, which is price. You can spend anywhere from a few dollars a month to a few hundred depending on your need...(related: Cheap Web Hosting)