Know Your Web Hosting - Difference between Bandwidth & Data Transfer

Know Your Web Hosting - Difference between Bandwidth & Data Transfer

Almost every business nowadays has a website. For that they need a webhosting company where they can host their website. Since, many people are laypersons; they have no clue of technical jargons thrown at them by their Web Hosting Companies which lead them to be confused and select web hosting company & plans which are not suitable for them. In today's article in the series of Know of your web hosting, we will explain to you what bandwidth and data transfer mean and how they can affect you website's performance.

Bandwidth means how much data can be transferred at any given time while data transfer means how much data is being transferred. Taking road analogy, road will be bandwidth i.e. how many cars can pass through it while data transfer is akin to how many vehicles allowed on the road. So, bandwidth represents the volume of data that can be transferred per unit of time. Data transfer is the measure of the traffic generated from your website.

If your webhosting providing is offering a plan which has a lower bandwidth then your website will load up slower. If your site receives lot of hits then site visitors will have to wait for pages to come up. This can affect your site and business. If your plan has a smaller data transfer, then it may be possible that your site uses the limit very quickly and your site will be shut down unless you shell out more for an upgrade.

What a web hosting company means when they talk about bandwidth is the data transfer. So, while discussing their plans be on one page with the company regarding the terminology at the onset to avoid problem afterwards. If you have no idea about your requirements then you may have to make some calculations. First of all you need to find an average of expected visitors to your site. Calculate the average size of your web pages. Do not forget to include images, animation, music and videos. Also, calculate expected page views by each visitor.

With these figures in hand, get a calculator in your hand and multiply all these. Visitors no. x Page size x Page views no. x 30 days = Monthly Website Data Transfer. Add some extra % of margin for your own uploads and downloads and email traffic.

Many Web Hosting Companies offer unlimited plans. Bandwidths are very costly, so this is simply a false offer. You will find the true meaning behind this offer if you read the terms & conditions carefully. These terms & conditions usually state that if any website is consuming bandwidth at the expense of other users, then their account can be terminated. The actual fact is that if the host company feels that the website is consuming more bandwidth than it has paid then the site will be shut down.

So before you sign up with any host company calculate your bandwidth and data transfer needs and read T & As carefully to enjoy uninterrupted services.

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