How to Boost Server Response Time

Have you ever clicked on a link or tab to another web page, only to sit there waiting forever for the page to load? While you’re sitting there waiting, have you ever decided to just hit the ‘back’ button in search a faster-loading page?

This is the issue with server response times. Nobody wants to waste time waiting for a page to load. But most times it’s the server that’s to blame for a slow-loading page.

What is Server Response Time?

Server response time refers to how long it takes for a web server to respond to a browser request. Regardless of how optimized your site’s pages are for speed, if the servers response time is lagging, your pages will take forever to display.

According to Google, your server response time should be no longer than 200ms.

How Can You Speed Up Server Response Time?

There are essentially two ways to do this:

• Educating – Utilize your hosting more efficiently;
• Paying more – The more you are willing to pay for hosting and hardware, the more likely the server will be faster.

The decision you ultimately make will typically come down to how much you can afford.

What Factors Determine Server Response Time?

There are four key things that help determine your server response time:

Traffic – The more traffic you have, the more problems you’ll encounter with speed.
Resource Usage – If every web page uses fewer resources, your server response time can be improved without spending any money. You can reduce the resources a web page uses by either combining external CSS files, combining external javascript files, or deferring images.

Web Server Software – Changing your web server software can help improve server response time.
Hosting – Getting better hosting can improve your server response time, but this will require more money. Shared hosting is the cheapest way to go, and is ideal for those just starting out in the world wide web. Good shared hosting is typically around $5 a month.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is the next step once you’ve outgrown shared hosting. You might need to learn more about it, or else pay more for the “Managed VPS host”. VPS hosting costs between $20 to $50 a month. A dedicated server is your own private server that no one else but you uses. Quality dedicated servers usually cost around $90 to several hundred dollars a month.

Regardless of what web server software you’re currently using, it can most likely be better configured.

You can dramatically speed up the server response time by changing your web server software or improving its configuration. If you’ve got the budget, you can pay a professional web developer to configure what you’ve already got. Choosing the right web server can significantly improve your server response time, so it might just be worth the money.