A website’s bandwidth is a measurement of the amount of data a website uses during a specific time period. Bandwidth can be affected by the amount of traffic to a website and the number of resources a website has.
How is Bandwidth Determined?
The amount of bandwidth a website uses is impacted by the size and number of resources a website has. A resource can be an image, file, graphic, etc. This usage then can increase based on the frequency of download. Basically, if there are large files or multiple files and a steady download by users, bandwidth for that website could be higher.
Let’s look at an example to better understand bandwidth. If a user were to visit the following content page, the resources outlined in the red boxes would automatically begin loading as soon as the page opens. If these resources have not been optimized, they could have a larger file size. Now imagine 100 or 1000 people view and download these resources every day. The amount of bandwidth this one page uses would increase.
How Can I Decrease Bandwidth Usage?
There are two elements that make up bandwidth: resource size and number of visitors. Since nobody wants to prohibit a user from accessing their website, it’s best to focus on the resource size. If you have ever heard the term “optimize for web” this is what it affects. It’s important to save your images, graphics and files to be web friendly. This doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice quality but instead optimize and decrease the weight or size of those files.
For additional information on how to optimize images, check out our blog and video section.
As always, feel free to contact Informatics with any questions you may have.
