Purchasing and Accounting for Bandwidth
HOSTING HOTLINE
In my last installment, we took a look at what options webmasters have when choosing a Web host for their adult site. Once a host is chosen, the next issue a webmaster must consider is bandwidth.HOSTING HOTLINE
In my last installment, we took a look at what options webmasters have when choosing a Web host for their adult site. Once a host is chosen, the next issue a webmaster must consider is bandwidth. It’s important because once your adult site starts attracting a significant amount of traffic, bandwidth is something you will have to plan for and purchase on a regular basis.
In its simplest sense, bandwidth is the amount of traffic/data that can be transferred within a specified amount of time. When choosing an adult Web host, the amount of bandwidth you decide to purchase can ultimately be crucial to the success of your site. Generally speaking, the more amount of bandwidth you have, the more traffic your site will be able to handle at one time.
Of course, this begs the question: how much will I need?
The first step in determining your requirements is trying to estimate the size of each page on your site and how many people are going to view it. To obtain a rough estimate, combine the size of every image on the page you are evaluating and add it to the size of the page’s HTML file. Multiply that by the amount of views you expect for that page each month, and you’ll have a rough idea of how much bandwidth you will require for that page.
For example: three 10k images on a page with a 2k HTML file would add up to 32k of data for that page. Multiply that by your expected page views (let’s say in this case it is 100,000 per month), and you get 3.2 GB of data to be transferred each month for that page. Now perform this calculation for each page, and you will know approximately how much bandwidth your entire site requires every month.
While your initial calculation might make webmasters of some larger adult sites nervous, it’s important to remember that there are a number of ways to reduce the amount of bandwidth that your site consumes. The first technique is to try and keep your pages as small as possible. This means paying close attention to your HTML programming to reduce file size, and compressing your pictures.
Make sure to use the JPEG image format for your photos and the GIF format for graphics for optimum image size and quality.
I like Dr. HTML’s site for some helpful tools and analysis for image sizes, transfer amounts and more.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are also an effective way to save data transfer, as they’re designed to reduce HTML file sizes by attributing values for HTML commands at the beginning of the document, thereby saving on code space.
Also be sure to double-check that nobody is stealing your bandwidth by linking to your images from another site. Doing this without permission is a form of piracy, it is extremely unethical, and leaves you footing the entire Web hosting bill. Unfortunately, it’s a regular occurrence in on the adult Internet, but it can be stopped.
The most basic method of preventing bandwidth theft is to police your site. This means analyzing search engines, logs and external sites to determine who is using your images (and your bandwidth) without permission. Another more costly but time-efficient way to protect your bandwidth and images is through commercial software like Artistscope image protection software (artistscope.net).
The issue of bandwidth needs to be given serious consideration when running an image-heavy adult site. Make sure to choose a host with a package that suits your needs, and make sure they’re scalable. After all, if you need additional bandwidth down the road, you’ll want to choose a provider that can supply you with it.
Hosts4Porn is located in Toronto, Canada.