When searching for a web hosting provider, you might saw something like 1TB bandwidth 2TB bandwidth, Unlimited bandwidth, etc. As you pay more, you will get more and more bandwidth for your hosting account. So, actually, what do they mean by bandwidth? If you are a beginner, it’s quite common to have such questions. In this article, we are going to give you the complete details of the bandwidth of your hosting account and why it is important.
What is Bandwidth?
Bandwidth is a term which used to quantify the data flowing between your website (or Web server) and the user. In terms of web hosting, the term “Bandwidth” is usually used to refer the “Data transfer.” But actually, they are two different things.
Bandwidth is the amount of data which can be transferred within a specific time (Usually calculated in Seconds.) Data transfer in other hands is the total amount of data to be transferred between the user and the server. In other words, Data transfer is the consumption of Bandwidth which is typically referred as the Bandwidth of the hosting plan.
To be very simple, if your web hosting account provides 1TB bandwidth per month. It means, the total amount of data served to your users is limited to 1TB per month. Beyond that limit, users will not be able to access your website unless you upgrade your plan or add more bandwidth to your hosting account. An example of what users will see when visiting a bandwidth limit exceeded website is given below.
If your web hosting provider offers better or unlimited bandwidth for a less price than the competitors, it indicates the capability of the hosting over others. Higher the bandwidth, higher the user experience and speed of your website.
How To Calculate The Bandwidth You Need
If you still doubted about the correct bandwidth selection, here we are sharing a method for you to calculate the estimated bandwidth you needed per month. If you are a beginner and has not yet bought a web hosting plan, we recommend going for a small hosting plan with low bandwidth. After getting a good idea about the web hosting and it’s working, you could select a better plan by spending some more money.
Calculate or Estimate Bandwidth
Choosing a suitable bandwidth limit is always important. If you are already getting a ton of traffic and it’s increasing day by day, we recommend to go with an Unlimited Bandwidth hosting plan. If you still want to estimate your bandwidth, follow the below steps.
- First of all, estimate the average page size of your site in kilobytes (KB). You can use the online tools like SmallSEOTools Page size checker or SEOChat Page Size checker to calculate your web page sizes. Calculate the average page size by testing 10+ pages and noting down the page sizes. Then add all those page sizes and divide the answer with the total number of pages tested. For some websites, the results may not be accurate. In that case, use the Pingdom’s Load Time tool.
- Multiply the average page size (calculated in KB) by the monthly average number of visitors your website gets. You can use the Google Analytics tool to get the monthly visitors.
- Now, multiply the result you got from step 2 by the average number of pageviews per visitor which can also be found in Google Analytics tool.
In short, the equation will be like,
Bandwidth required (in a month) = Average Page Views x Average Page Size x Average Daily Visitors x Number of days in a month (30)
The answer will be the estimated minimum bandwidth you needed for your website. I repeat, it’s the very minimum. We recommend allotting at least 150% of the answer as your bandwidth as your traffic may increase at any time. If you are allowing user downloads from your server, there will be a huge difference in the bandwidth. If so, the above equation will become.
Bandwidth required (in a month) = [(Average Page Views x Average Page Size x Average Daily Visitors) + (Average Downloads per day x Average File Size of the downloads) ] x Number of days in a month (30)
In this case, we recommend allotting at least 200% of the answer as the bandwidth for your website.
Wrapping Up
Wrapping up all the things, bandwidth is a crucial factor which can determine the user experience on your website as well as it can even block the user access beyond the limit. So, be wise in choosing the bandwidth of your hosting plan. As most of the established companies provide 1TB+ bandwidth on all average hosting accounts, it is not a factor to be worried a lot unless you have a hell huge amount of traffic to your website. In that case, we recommend going for an unlimited bandwidth plan.
Never trust the exact number in your web hosting providers website as they will never reveal the exact threshold of the plan and the limitations. Always be choosy by researching the hosting trust and the user satisfaction. So, all the best in choosing the right bandwidth for your website.