Why you should be more attentive towards your Server response time?

Server response time is the time taken in getting response from the server after sending a request. According to Google Page Speed Insights – Server response time should be under 200ms Factors that affect response time of server–

• Slow running of logical queries

• Solving database queries slowly

• Slow routing

• Framework

• Lack of memory

• Libraries

Outcomes of slow server response time–

• Affects indexation process

• High bounce rate

• Bad user experience

Factors that help in determining server response time– Traffic coming on the site With increased traffic on the site, webpage loading time speed slows down. This is because increased traffic increases resource usage. Resource usage by a website For viewing a web page each time, web server is accessed, which keeps the resources occupied. With website resources being occupied, the other functioning at the backend gets slow, eventually affecting the response time. Steps for reducing resource usage –

• Optimize code by combining CSS files

• Combine JavaScript files

• Optimize images

• Impact of keep-alive (determine how communication is carried out between webserver and browser)

• Minify CSS and JavaScript

Web hosting Right web hosting is necessary for improved server response time. Following are few recommendations for improving web hosting-

• WordPress hosting- WordPress specific web hosting is must if a server is using WordPress frequently.

• Shared hosting- For effective functioning of websites, shared hosting is preferred. Bluehost is a widely used shared website hosting platform.

• VPS hosting- When your site gets too big for shared hosting, you can opt for VPS.

• Dedicated server- When you need more than VPS hosting, you need a dedicate server.

• Cloud server- In this, virtual server is put into action. This helps in managing the resources optimally.

• Content delivery network- It is based on the geographic location of the user. Storing and accessing of files can easily be done from any part of the world by this method.

• Caching- WordPress sites linked with PHP often slowdown the servers speed because server requires handling various other files. Caching WordPress files provides users static files directly, thus reducing load on the server.

Web Server Use of the right web server (Apache, Nginx and Litespeed) is necessary to improve the response time. Web server wise benefits- Apache

• Free of cost

• Easily configurable

• PHP server side scripting language runs on Apache at an average pace

Nginx

• Free of cost

• Uses less resources

• Handles traffic efficiently

• It has the fastest server response time

• PHP runs on Apache at a fast pace

Litespeed

• It is available in both free and paid versions

• Much faster than Apache and Nginx

• Easily compatible with Apache

• PHP server side scripting language runs at a much faster pace on Litespeed

Credit: Patrick Sexton