How to calculate the bandwidth we need and estimate the traffic to our website?

Return to the blogs list

D., Mike | 2009-12-28

When we are about to contract a hosting provider, we have to decide what bandwidth we will need, and that requires a prior calculation. If we end up buying an inadequate bandwidth, we will either pay more than we should (bandwidth excess is usually quite expensive), or we will pay for something that we will never use.

To know with a reasonable certainty what amount of bandwidth we will require, we first need to know the average weight (in bytes) of all our pages, including images and other resources. We also need to know the average amount of pages that our website users visit daily - or the amount of pages that we would like them to visit on daily basis. Then we have to make the following calculation:

To get the traffic in megabytes, simply multiply the amount of pages visited daily by the average page weight, then divide the result by 1048576, which is the amount of bytes in a megabyte.

Daily traffic in Mb = Page Weight in bytes * Daily page visits / 1048576

To obtain the traffic in gigabytes per month, generated by our website (which is usually the number used by hosting providers), we have to multiply the average weight of a web page by the amount of daily visits, then multiply by 30.41 (as months have different lengths, 30.41 is the correct number of days: as if all the months had the same duration), then divide the result by 1073741824 (the number of bytes in a gigabyte).

Monthly Traffic in Gigabytes = page weight * daily page visits * 30.41 / 1073741824

If we want to know the line speed that we need to contract in order to satisfy the needs of our website, remember that the line speed is calculated in kilobits or megabits per second (not bytes), and the following calculation is required: multiply the average page weight by the amount of daily visits then by 8 (since we entered the page weight in bytes and one byte is equivalent to 8 bits), then divide the result by the amount of seconds in a day, which is 86400, then divide by 1000 to obtain the final result in kilobits.

Required bandwidth in kilobits per second = page weight * daily visits * 8 / (86400*1000)

Now, what is the maximum bandwidth we will need? Most people agree that the traffic will increase between 2.5 and 3 times when our website gets indexed by various social networks, which means that it would be diligent, after making the calculations above, to triplicate the results before you choose the bandwidth package.

Usually, when users make these calculations, they realize what costs they incur with under-optimized websites, where there are unnecessary images, or where the quality is too high for web projects, - this way achieving a greater availability of the website without the need for more bandwidth.

In order to avoid the calculation manually you can use our tool, bandwidth estimation tool

Another blog entries

Optimizing Loading Time

D., Mike | 2010-02-23

The loading time of a webpage is often underestimated by web developers. It’s true that network speeds are getting faster, while bandwidth capacities grow exponentially as well. But it is also true that users find it very frustrating to have to wait just because the webpage was not sufficiently optimized. This waiting time affects users’ trust in your website and in the brand that it represents. Equally, a long loading time is a negative point in the eyes of main search engines.

Recent studies show that most users tolerate a waiting time between 2 to 4 seconds (for small commercial websites or travel resellers) before they abandon a webpage.

Developers often recur to increases of bandwidth when confronted with a slow website, while in reality the key to improving the situation is to optimize the website itself.

Here we are going to offer some advice about how to achieve an optimized website and thereby reduce loading time.

Page Speed

How to increase traffic to a website?

D., Mike | 2010-02-11

Every day millions of people run millions of queries on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and many others, hoping to find information on a certain subject, or a specific product, making the search engines the main entry point to the internet.

Say you want to buy an SUV. Run a browser (we prefer Firefox, but it can be Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera, etc..) Type the URL http://www.google.com. Then introduce the term "suv+ car + dealers". The number of results can be astonishing.

Search in google

Getting on top of search results on major engines is a task that can consume a lot of time and effort, and we don’t even know if we’ll be able to accomplish that goal: your site can simply get buried among millions of others available today. But one thing is sure: better search engine rankings mean more visits to your website; which is why anything you invest in the positioning, will never be in vain.

Now, what is necessary to achieve good search engine rankings? Three basic things: knowledge, discipline in content publishing, and dedication.

Domain's Life Cycle. How to rescue an expired domain?

D., Mike | 2010-01-21

The domain names have a life cycle; it is very important to realize that for many reasons. First, we need to protect the domain name to prevent it from expiring. Also, detect the moment when a domain name, that belongs to somebody else, is near expiry; inquire about any additional fees that a Registrar may impose once your domain name expires.

Domain life cycle

How to choose a domain name?

D., Mike | 2010-01-13

Selection of a domain name is an important step in the website development. It greatly affects such vital aspects as the easiness to be found, Google Pagerank, and brand positioning. Once a website is operational, brand positioning requires quite an investment; it is important, at that point, to avoid any legal conflicts. Selecting a domain name can determine whether your website will be easily remembered by your users - and thus also define your chances of being revisited.

The basic principles when choosing a domain name should be short, simple, well directed, memorable, related to the web content and more...

How to select the best hosting provider?

D., Mike | 2009-12-28

The selection of a good hosting provider is not an easy task at all: a bad choice can lead your entire project to a total fiasco, even when it’s an excellent idea on itself. Imagine the catastrophic implications of your site being offline at the moment when the search engines are trying to index it. Or imagine how disappointed you will be when you discover that your hosting company takes ages to respond to your inquiries, especially the urgent ones!