Distinction Between Bandwidth and Data Transfer
It is common to see Bandwidth and Data Transfer being used interchangeably on the internet, particularly in web hosting plans.
However, there is a significant technical difference between these two terms. Bandwidth refers to the measurement of the data transfer rate across a medium (network).
Having more bandwidth will result in faster loading times for your site. Conversely, Data Transfer refers to the traffic generated (or the volume of data transferred) from a website.
The volume of data transferred will depend on the number of visitors to the site and the sizes of the web pages (including multimedia files).
In web hosting, if you have minimal data transfer, you are more likely to find your site unavailable because you have reached the maximum allowed until the new month begins or you upgrade your account.
Calculate Your Monthly Data Transfer
If you manage a popular site, be prepared to calculate the necessary monthly data transfer.
Monthly Data Transfer = (Visitors per Day x Average Page Size x Page Views x 30 days) + (Average Downloads x File Size x 30 days)
Data transfer is quantified in bytes, kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), or gigabytes (GB). For instance, if a website delivers 100,000 pages each month with an average page file size of 20 KB, the monthly data transfer will total 2GB.
Therefore, a 20GB Data Transfer limit will be adequate for 1,000,000 page views monthly, which equates to about 20,000 unique visitors daily.
In fact, nearly 80% of websites on the internet utilize less than 5GB of data transfer monthly. The Data Transfer limit provided by Exabytes.com is substantially higher than 5GB, so our customers typically do not need to be concerned about it in most scenarios.
How to Minimize Data Transfers?
You can lessen the total data transfer by creating an optimized website using the following methods:
1. Optimize your image files before adding them to your web pages, and aim to use web-friendly formats like .jpg and .gif rather than larger files like .bmp. Additionally, eliminate unused tags, spacing, and comments in your web pages before uploading to the web server.
2. Minimize the use of flashy flash presentations or streaming audio.
3. Instead of embedding CSS and JavaScript in every page, link them externally.
JavaScript Call Sample:
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript" src="scripts/sample.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT>
CSS Sample:
<LINK href="css/sample.css" rel=stylesheet title="Exabytes.com" type=text/css>