What does bandwidth (data transfer) mean and what can I do if I have exceeded it?
Data transfer is the amount of data that is transferred between your site and your visitors browser. If the file size of a page on your website is 20KB and the page also makes use of two 10KB images, then every visitor to the page will download 40KB of data. If a thousand people download these files in a month, your monthly data transfer would be 39MB ((40KB * 1000) / 1024). So, the larger the files, the higher the data transfer usage when it is downloaded and the more traffic to your site, the more data transfer you will use.
An automated email will warn you if your site has exceeded the data transfer (sometimes referred to as bandwidth) limit for a particular month.
You can either try to reduce your usage or upgrade. If you wish to try to reduce your usage, this can be achieved by decreasing the number and size of images, reducing the resolution of images, spreading the content over more pages (i.e having smaller pages), removing large downloads e.g. music and video files, removing background music and generally decreasing the amount of data which is being downloaded (maybe unnecessarily) in each visit.
You also need to make sure that your image files are the same size as they appear on the page, so users aren't downloading a big image just to have the HTML reduce the size.
Your options are, either to upgrade or to try to reduce the usage. If you choose to try to reduce the usage, but still exceed, then you will need to pay for the excess each month as it occurs. 5GB or less of excess data transfer is charged at £6.99 + VAT for each month that the site exceeds.
Please note that if you anticipate exceeding every month, then it is usually much cheaper to upgrade than to pay for the excess each month as it occurs. If you have a Premier plan (10GB) or Multi-15 plan (15GB), then you can buy extra blocks of monthly data transfer as follows (monthly prices only apply to monthly accounts):
5GB for £50p/y - £5p/m
10GB for £80p/y - £8p/m
20GB for £150p/y - £15p/m
Others in this Category
- How much data transfer (bandwidth) do you think I will need?
- Is it possible to have extra allowance for data transfer (bandwidth)?
- How do I view my disk usage and bandwidth (data transfer) statistics?
- What is hotlinking (data transfer/bandwidth theft) and how can I prevent it?
- Do you suspend my site or send me an unexpected bill if I exceed my bandwidth limit?
