While we’re on topic of daily bandwidth limits, I’d also like to point out that if you’re hosting with a free host – such as Yahoo! Geocities – prepare for bandwidth limitations of just 3-5 megabytes per day. This means that you won’t be hosting any video clips or large downloads for long. I once had a web site hosted with Geocities that consisted of just one page – one single page. The page was filled with tons of sports car images both big and small. Once my site started to get 100 visitors per day, even that amount of traffic caused me to exceed my daily bandwidth limit. As a result, my site was shut down almost every day, for a period of several months, due to continually exceeding my daily bandwidth limit.

The point I am trying to make with this article is that with proper preparation and web site design, you can ensure that you always have enough bandwidth to go around. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1) When building a new web site, try to make pages as small (file size) as possible. There are many free tools out there that will tell you size of your pages and can also compress them to make them more compact.

2) When using images on your web site, try not to go crazy – keep number of images to a minimum. If you must use tons of images, try a .jpeg or .gif compression tool to make images as small as possible.

3) Make a concerted effort not to offer too many files for download. If for some reason you feel that you need to offer hundreds of downloadable files, try to select ones that are small (1-2 megs) in size.

By following tips above, you’ll be able to more accurately predict your bandwidth needs based on your web site content and estimated traffic. Obviously these tips are only general guidelines – true test is launching your web site and carefully observing and monitoring your bandwidth usage patterns for several months. Inevitably you may need to alter your web site layout/content from time to time to stay within your monthly bandwidth limits. Better yet, if your site becomes so popular that you really do need more bandwidth, simply order more bandwidth from your existing web host or switch to a host that provides more generous monthly data transfer. As your web site grows in size and popularity, sufficient bandwidth will always be a concern, but, such is price of success!

>> If you are a beginner, just calculate your present requirement keeping in mind of any future up gradations. It is essential if in future you go for an interactive site or a dynamic site, your present host must have ability to upgrade services without any hassles. You should choose a basic package and check required features available for use. You can always upgrade to higher package in future. This way you can save much of your money and focus on enhancing your site.

>> If your site is a database driven and require custom or readymade script installations, You should check if components required by site are preinstalled on server. You can make a checklist and ask your hosting provider if they will be complying with all requirements. Some companies also provide hosting with preinstalled scripts/software’s which you can install and start using in minutes without spending much time on developing and installing it. It is always advisable to check complete features of software’s, which meets your present requirements as well as have latest version installed. You may choose an advance hosting plan and check required features.

>> If your site is a high traffic one and required concurrent up gradations and installations of scripts, you should go for a dedicated hosting service. It is always advisable to have a managed dedicated server with all latest components installed with it. This will give you freedom to upgrade your site or application at any point of time, done by you only. Find out reliable datacenters and checkout server specs along with facilities provided by them. There are few datacenters which I can recommend are Rackspace, ThePlannet, Infinology and also you can check with EV1Servers too for some interesting offers.