If you have a content rich site, with about 1000 articles and about 10 000 visitors per month, good size customized, talking to your personal experience how much could you be using in bandwidth per month?

It is really hard to say without knowing what type of content you plan on having.

Its kind of like saying "how many dogs can you fit in a box?". Well how big is the box, what type of dogs, are they puppies or full grown, can we stack the dogs?

say your average page size including images, text, scripts that will have to load is 100kb then each page that loads will take 100kb of bandwidth.

If you are planning on 10_000 visits a month and they all only open one page that would be something like 1GB of transfer. So I guess it would be fair to say that most likely on average each visitor goes to 3 pages some more some less. So maybe a 5 GB cap would do, of course that is if you do only have 100kb pages.

Hope this helps, let me know if I can answer any other question.

very useful, maybe my pages are less than 100kb but need to check better, though thanks for giving an idea.

It really depends on the content and popularity of your niche. I would go for something pretty large: 100GB or more.

Don't forget the pages that get cached in the temp folder, do they count when you go back to a page again?

Originally Posted by scutari

Don't forget the pages that get cached in the temp folder, do they count when you go back to a page again?

Yes. They're not processed by the server (like PHP/MySQL), but they are still processed by the client.

Is ftp bandwidth taken into consideration when calculating the general bandwidth needs?

Originally Posted by scutari

Don't forget the pages that get cached in the temp folder, do they count when you go back to a page again?

Depends which cache you mean - a visitor's cache in their browser (or ISP proxy) for example will reduce your bandwidth/data transfer bills. This is one reason why it's (generally) a good idea to create a global CSS file and link to it in all of your pages, instead of using inline styles (i.e. embedded in your HTML) - the external CSS file can be cached by your visitors, which will save you a few KB per page request.

Likewise the same is true for images - so where you have a common element on all/many pages such as your logo, this would be downloaded only once per visit in most cases; one reason why you can (IMO) afford to let your logo filesize be a little larger than other "one-off" images on your page, if required of course. However, it's important to consider that whilst you may have good reason to expect 10,000 visitors per month, search engine spiders will increase that (assuming you haven't already counted them as 'visitors'?) so your needs may be higher than your initial estimate. Another issue is that as a new site (?) your visitor traffic may be quite different to what you anticipate...

Now given that you're asking this question, I think really the underlying reason behind it is missed. I guess you're trying to figure out what might be a suitable hosting plan for such a site...? In that case, I'd suggest that you're asking the wrong question, as accurately predicting data transfer needs (especially for a growing site) is a notoriously difficult task.

Instead, I would recommend that you concentrate on finding a provider who you can scale up with as your needs require rather than purchasing way too little or way too much initially and this causing later problems (over budget, suspended/unreliable service etc.).

Let me ask you this: what's your budget, and what features do you need from your hosting (e.g. MySQL, ASP.NET, MSSQL, PHP, JSP, Coldfusion etc.).

icyblue, it doesn't take into consideration on many web hosting services.

Originally Posted by icyblue

Is ftp bandwidth taken into consideration when calculating the general bandwidth needs?

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

icyblue, it doesn't take into consideration on many web hosting services.

It varies from one provider to another, but I would say that most do consider this part of your usage. Why: it can be easily abused if not as if you're using the site as a download location (e.g. to download your latest GPL/open source creations etc.) you can just give people FTP links instead of have people use HTTP instead. Depending on the service this may be a really bad/insecure idea, but the potential is still there.

Also, for the general user this isn't an issue as you will upload your files once at the start, and maybe occassionally make a few changes. However, I'm not aware of any hosting plan where there isn't enough transfer included for you to upload your files and accept a significant amount of traffic before needing to upgrade (due to transfer limits anyway - obviously the type of scripts you run etc. may require you to upgrade sooner; which is what a lot of cheaper providers use to avoid having to provide their oversold services to the full extent as advertised).

So I guess my question is... why wouldn't it be included? It shouldn't dramatically alter your calculations for what you need since your visitors will be using the largest share of your transfer allocation (you upload a 100KB website once, but have thousands of visitors each of which download some/all of it to view it in their browsers...).

It varies from one provider to another, but I would say that most do consider this part of your usage.

And people have no idea why their bandwidth inrcreased...

Wow.. is this a hard riddle.. hm..let me guess... 34 miles per hour!

Did I win?

Honestly though, at 10k visitors a month I'd go ahead and look for a unlimited bandwidth package, as that will give you room to grow.

Good luck!

I would recommend staying away from Unlimited packages... It will only lead to trouble.

Doesn't your current host have stats on the bandwidth?
It would honestly just pick a reliable host around here and get a basic plan. Monitor the stats and as it increases, upgrade to another plan.

Honestly though, at 10k visitors a month I'd go ahead and look for a unlimited bandwidth package, as that will give you room to grow.

The real cap would be dictated by the amount one pays, as there's only so much CPU usage a host will allow, at a given price point. Limited CPU usage -> limited amounts of data transfer can be pushed.

Originally Posted by damien_ls

Instead, I would recommend that you concentrate on finding a provider who you can scale up with as your needs require rather than purchasing way too little or way too much initially and this causing later problems (over budget, suspended/unreliable service etc.).

Let me ask you this: what's your budget, and what features do you need from your hosting (e.g. MySQL, ASP.NET, MSSQL, PHP, JSP, Coldfusion etc.).

Very useful explanation, but let me figure out something more. I have set a free account at freehostia, with a limit of 5gb per month as I just started my website. I was supposing that within a year while working I would like my site to have about 1000 pages or articles, and I cannot afford to pay right now cause I don't know if I can afford it. My idea was to get an affiliate plan so that get any money on my account and pay for further extended hosting plans.
I am planning to use Mysql and PHP as I intend to create polls and rates and similar php scripts.

You can upgrade hosting plan easily with almost all hosting providers
Bigger plan, vps, or dedicated server.
You don't need more than a few GBs with a website with 1000 pages or articles.
Only media files need huge amount of disk space.

Originally Posted by scutari

Very useful explanation, but let me figure out something more.

Feel free to award TP as appropriate

Originally Posted by scutari

I have set a free account at freehostia, with a limit of 5gb per month as I just started my website. I was supposing that within a year while working I would like my site to have about 1000 pages or articles, and I cannot afford to pay right now cause I don't know if I can afford it.

Free hosting is "ok" but be aware that obviously they need to get their money from somewhere, and since operating a competent hosting company is not cheap you can expect trouble whenever you pay very little or nothing for your hosting service. Ensure that you keep regular backups of your files and database (assuming you're using) as you never know if/when they'll stop your service.

Of course, you should always keep backups anyway - even if you pay for the most expensive and "bullet-proof" hosting service you can find...

Since you're probably must lower than your 1000 page target right now then my recommendation would be to look for a small paid hosting plan; something around $5 should be within anyone's budget?

Originally Posted by scutari

My idea was to get an affiliate plan so that get any money on my account and pay for further extended hosting plans.

Good idea, but remember that it can be difficult to actually convert affiliate links into profit. Forget trying to post them on forums for example (most ban them anyway). You'll probably have most luck getting your friends to signup with your affiliate link - but be careful... you're essentially endorsing a service you know very little about, so if your friends have problems with them...

Originally Posted by PremiumHost

You can upgrade hosting plan easily with almost all hosting providers
Bigger plan, vps, or dedicated server.

Not exactly true. If you look around you'll find that most providers are actually resellers, in which case they usually only offer shared hosting. If/when you outgrow that will mean changing provider to get a VPS or dedicated server.

Also, even if your chosen provider offers a full range of services, the upgrade path between them may be complicated and involve downtime etc. Not many providers are competent at providing smooth upgrades between shared -> VPS, or VPS -> dedicated for example...

Then consider if you purchase (rent) a dedicated server on a long-term contract; not all providers will let you simply change to a different server, or downgrade to a VPS etc. should you needs suddenly change. These are issues that should be carefully considered for someone expecting to outgrow the plan they're selecting today.

I will say "not too much" space and bandwidth. But you'll definitely need good uptime. Any of the reasonably prices hosting plans would work for you including those offered by oversellers ... until they limit your connections.

Well it is not all about budget, but about ways to pay, I cannot afford paypal cause of my country. I always do a check for hosting companies alexa rankings, and why not trust them if most of people does.

Which country is that? What payment methods do you have available to you..?

As for checking hosting companies on Alexa I'm not certain I understand the motive behind that. The host's own website may not be substantially busy - or maybe not popular amongst users who like the Alexa toolbar - but they may also host/manage multiple high traffic sites that you're not aware of.

Even if the host's website itself does get a good result on Alexa - what does this tell you except for they have a busy website? What does it tell you about their hosting or the quality of it?