The Impact of Server Response Time on Website Performance

Server response time (also referred to as Time to First Byte or TTFB) is the time taken by the web server to respond with the first byte of content after a request is made for the webpage. When a HTTP request is made, the web server has to process the request before it sends back the first byte of response to the web browser. Any delay in processing the request can slow down the page loading speeds, thereby affecting website performance and user experience. There could be many factors that may slow down the loading of website but response from the web server is the critical one. No matter how optimized your website pages are for speed, if server response is slow, the site becomes inefficient for user interaction.

Factors Influencing Server Response Time

The response time of the web server depends on various factors like hosting & site traffic, database response, server configuration, website design etc. A problem with any one of these aspects can impact the working of web server and its response times. Unless the exact reason for the issue is identified, you cannot really optimize the server for better page performance. One of the best ways to pinpoint the bottleneck of the issue is to continuously monitor the web server performance using website monitoring Service . As said earlier, the site might be having insufficient hosting resources for the amount of traffic it is receiving or there could be an issue with the query which is retrieving data from the database. Whatever the reason might be, a regular site monitoring will enable to you to identify the possible issues that could be affecting your web server performance.

Why Slow Server Response Results in Bad User Experience?

There are many good reasons to say why optimizing the server for better performance is important for websites. When a request is made for a web page, consumers expect it to load quickly. If the site down or is too slow to load fully, then the users will not be interested to continue with the site. Apparently, they will move on to another site which is responding much faster than your website. This definitely is not something to ignore as it can ruin the online reputation of your website. The impact may last even after optimizing the website for performance, because the users remember their bad experience while browsing your website and may hesitate to revisit the site again.

Tracking Server Performance Issues

While selecting an external monitoring for your website, it is essential to choose a service that includes server monitoring features. This will not only enable you to track server uptime, but helps to isolate the problem which is affecting your server performance. A quality website monitoring service tracks all the components of network connections & protocols, and monitors the application and database servers for performance. It checks for the problems caused by overloaded or crashed servers, network connections and other devices and notifies instantly if an issue is encountered by any one of these components.