Are Images Stealing Your Money?

They might not be wearing a mask and carrying a gun, but if you’ve got images on your web pages then they could be costing you a lot more money than you think every time a visitor looks at one. That’s because image files are typically the biggest bandwidth user on any web page. Whenever a visitor’s browser is displaying an image on your site, it’s actually downloading that image to the local user’s hard drive. When anything gets downloaded, it uses bandwidth and bandwidth costs money. The moral of that story is: The bigger the image the more bandwidth it consumes.

If you are hosting a popular photo gallery site, or you are an ISP with clients who have a lot of images on their sites, than it is entirely possible that most of your bandwidth is being eaten up by images!

Every good problem deserves a solution

There is a solution, however, and it’s a relatively simple and easy solution at that. It’s called image compression. What sounds like some sort of geek-speak is really just a simple procedure that squeezes the extra bloat out of web-hosted images without noticeably affecting their visual quality.

When an image gets compressed it naturally reduces the overall file size, and it’s that file size which causes images to eat up so much bandwidth.

NOT compressing your images is a lot like leaving the water running in the sink while you brush your teeth. You’re just pouring money down the drain.

The Trick to Simple, Automatic Image Compression

The key to saving wasted bandwidth and accelerating the image download process is to use automated image compression scripts that you simply install on your web server and forget about. The good ones will calculate image compression ratios on the fly and always deliver the smallest possible file size without sacrificing quality, and it will do it all by itself!

The end result is a bandwidth savings that can run as high as 50% or more on image-intensive sites. And THAT is a solution worth installing.

So whether you are an ISP who is looking to reduce the amount of bandwidth that your clients consume, or you are a webmaster who is paying way too much in bandwidth fees, the solution to expanding your wallet just could very well be compressing your images.

Article written by Rod.

http://www.condomcash.com

well what i have to curb that bandwith problem is i have 2 servers and i am also getting a dedicated server too so 3 servers for my website. its more expensive but it works. 19.95 a month for my shared hosts 40.95 per month basically for both then well the dedicated server is going to run about 50 bucks a month dedicated virtual.

Matt..

This is an interesting article. I wasn't aware of any programs that reduce the image on the fly like this..
"Providing I'm reading this article right" :wacko:
Any links to these scripts you mentioned? Is this something new?
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Persoanlly I would be little nervous about installing something like this on the server. Only reason I say that is because there are SOOO many different types of users out here running who knows what for OS's.
I'm a diehard Fireworks fan for image compression. In fact that's about all I use Fireworks for. I guess I just like knowing the surfer is getting the image at what "I feel" is the best when downloading it. Of course I understand my way isn't 100%, but I don't think I would sleep well depending on a automated system like this.

well we have a image compression type of thing on our web server too where if someone uploads a big file it reduces its size to our standards and well makes it easier bandwith wise.

also as well we are very restricted on photo size and we crop the files down before we install them on our site also as well we restrict people from copying them unless they are in the members section (since they are paying to see the X rated photos they might as well be able to copy them) as for the G rated photos they are copy protected on the guest pages since well we are still building our new design the photos are going to be on a diffrent format / resolution / and layout its going to be very good for bandwith issues. the biggest bandwith killer is movies and video clips talk about sucking down some bandwith right there..

Matt..