How can data transfer be reduced?
Reduce the size of your website files.
Your web hosting provider sends you a bandwidth overage warning and suggests that you reduce the size of your web files.
What is “bandwidth usage” called?
It is the total amount of information that has been transferred from your web server to your visitors. The files on your web site have a specific size. Your web page is the sum of these files. When a visitor visits your web site, his browser sends a request to your web server asking for the files. The files are downloaded to the browser for viewing.
In other words, the larger the files, the higher the bandwidth usage. Likewise, the more requests your web site receives, the more “bandwidth” it uses.
Can I reduce my “bandwidth consumption”?
You certainly don’t want to reduce the number of visitors. So the most effective way is to reduce the size of your website files.
▸ Develop simpler and more efficient websites. Eliminate any unnecessary text, images or other files. Keep your pages as small as possible.
▸ Optimize your graphics. For photos, use the Webp image format, and for graphics, the GIF format.
▸ Avoid fancy flash presentations, audio and video. That includes background music.
▸ Use CSS and call Javascripts externally instead of embedding them on each page. This reduces the size of the HTML file.
▸ Remove tags, whitespace and unwanted comments.
▸ Reduce meta tags to those strictly necessary.
▸ Consider caching your website, but set an expiration date in the HTTP headers so that your visitors’ browsers update the content after a certain time (this allows their browser to save a copy of your website, and each time the visitor visits your website, the pages are served from the copy in the browser and not from your web server).
