Some of you might have come across an error on a site you frequent where it just becomes inexplicably slow all of the sudden or just plain disappears. You’re sure it’s not your connection because you checked another site and it loaded. So why is it that this one just decided to take a break? A shnazy little thing called server bandwidth.
The cheaper plans people often settle into buying are usually limited to a certain point. Once you reach this usage level the website can become unresponsive or go offline until the renewal period. (Or worse you pay more, often triple what you normally pay, just to get it back online right then and there.)
You might be thinking: “This is a serious problem, so why does this happen?” The answer to that is; When a person connects to a website they begin to use the server bandwidth to view the contents of the various pages they’re browsing. Every time they refresh the page or move to another more bandwidth is used up. The more content on a page (i.e. Video, pictures, text, music, etc…) the faster the servers bandwidth will be used up on a limited plan.
So if a persons website has “unlimited server bandwidth” you would think it would never go down right? Well, that’s not entirely true, depending on your providers definition of “unlimited.” Most policies for example will say that they give you a line with a certain speed, and unlimited bandwidth. This just means that no matter how many people connect to the server the site won’t be taken offline, because it’s usage is unlimited. So the website will still go offline if enough people get onto it at a given time. Usually only very large and popular sites have this problem, where thousands (Or more) of users all around the world are connecting to it at once.
So if your just starting a website and want to know how much you should be paying for just consider the amount of traffic you plan on generating. Maximum allotted bandwidth can be modified at any time with your provider. So don’t worry about getting an expensive plan at first, when you can go up gradually as needed.