Forum Moderators: phranque
Can experienced webmasters tell me how many GBs of transfer per month should I be looking for while searching for a web host?
It's hard to predict the number of visitors in my startup, but the point is that I would like to be ready for the best results. So just *let's* say the websites starts to get enough visitors to be considered a successful website with its own forums, not necessarily one of the top in the world, though.
Can you give me average numbers? For instance, (x) GB transfer per month for (y) visitors per day or month, etc.
I know it depends on the content, of course, but let's say the website starts with 100 pages of content with images in most of the pages, and a forums.
Thanks for anyone taking the time to share experience and tips.
if your pages each weigh 100 kb, then 10,000 page views per day = 1 GB transfer per day. if each of your visitors views 5 pages, then that's 2000 visitors a day.
this varies if you have streaming music, videos, downloads, etc.
it's up to you to work out how popular you think your site is going to be and how heavy you make your pages. if you think you need heavy traffic look for hosts in the states. the uk is very expensive per gb.
good luck!
It's just that I'm feverishly ambitious. Hihihi.
=)
Bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper while web pages (unless you're delivering multimedia) generally shouldn't be that big. In my experience bandwidth is an important metric to watch/measure but you'll have much fewer problems with it than you may think at the outset of a project.
Forgot where I've read that
If you remember the place, can you sticky me with the source?
Only 5% websites use over 2GB per month. Forgot where I've read that.
This doesn't really mean anything though. Many "websites" have no traffic. I have several domains (and I know ScottM does too) that don't have any real content on them. My main site has thousands of pages of content, but only four people in the world have been officially granted access beyond the login screen. There are thousands of sites of "our honeymoon" that are cranking away in cyberspace by people now celebrating their fourth anniversary.
The only questions that matters are how big are your pages and how many page views do you expect to get.
Remember, too, that users who view multiple pages will also be getting content from the browser cache. So in the example at that Jamie gave further up
if your pages each weigh 100 kb, then 10,000 page views per day = 1 GB transfer per day. if each of your visitors views 5 pages, then that's 2000 visitors a day.
That's just a quick illustration to guess at the max bandwidth for 2000 visitors looking at 5 pages at 100kb each. In fact, let's say your page looks like this
- html: 10kb
- images: 75kb
- javascript: 10kb
- css: 5kb
The first time someone visits your page, you'll indeed serve up 100kb. But you're probably going to use the same css, and maybe 20kb of the same images (logo, buttons) and possible the same JS file. So each subsequent page they visit is only costing 65kb, not 100kb. So your 2000 visitors can actually view more like seven pages for their 500kb or 2500 visitors get 5 pages.
Tom
So each subsequent page they visit is only costing 65kb, not 100kb.
Tom, great point. I may indeed sometimes forget to calculate things that way. However, I liked the assumption of 100kb per page solely for a specific project that should be image-heavy, with new visual demonstrations complimenting the text written in every new page. But like I said, this is just a specific project. For the majority of websites out there, your analysis is definitely the way to go.
I have a kids story database with over tens of thousand of stories. Whenever Google does a deep crawl, u will feel it. When Jeeves does a crawl, it will slow down your server (they absolutely crawl at more than a few times a second). Then u add the site scrapers & email harvesters, it's a major headache. I spend too much of my time blocking these scrapers.. I even block Jeeves because the bandwidht and CPU they take up does not justify the miniscule traffic they bring in.
So take these into your bandwidth calculation.. It's not only human eyes that looks at your pages...
