The Time to First Byte (TTFB) indicates how quickly a web server responds to requests (be it browser-based or APIs). It’s measured as the time taken from the moment the user submits the Web request, to the moment when the first byte of response is received from the server.
Please note that in this, it’s different from page load time, which measures how long it takes for a page to fully load once it has started rendering. You’ll see the poor TTFB phenomenon in many sites: they’re very fast once the page starts rendering, but there seems to be an initial hiccup or “warmup time” to overcome.
You should care about TTFB since it’s a key metric considered by search engines, and a high TTFB can lead to lower rankings even if you have stellar content.
Technically, it boosts up essential user-centric parameters like:
The Time to First Byte is actually a reflection of how the website is set up and how fast the underlying hardware is. There can be a number of reasons for high TTFB, and these need to be addressed to improve the TTFB performance:
There are many things you can do like below.
This is where you shouldn’t prioritize cheap. An economical web hosting service may suffice for personal projects. But, businesses should stick to competitive hosting providers right from the start.
Some of the best hosting platforms are:
A server located oceans apart increases network latency killing user experience. A CDN performs much like global servers for a worldwide audience. This ensures fast-loading websites from every corner of the world.
Some top picks:
Using caching can increase your chances of decreasing TTFB. No cache can increase your overall loading times, including TTFB, as this is the first step to loading any website. Again, good web-hosting providers have powerful in-built caching tools to cut short loading times. If you are using WordPress, you may consider using WP Rocket, one of the powerful caching plugins.
All hosting plans come with basic DNS servers. Some of which render requests slowly, increasing DNS lookup times. This ultimately pushes the TTFB, resulting in delays in website loading. Some premium hosts like Kinsta already provide premium DNS to their subscribers. However, anyone can switch to a 3rd-party DNS server like Google Cloud DNS, Cloudflare DNS, etc.
This adds in the HTTP requests made by the web browser. The extra to-and-fro increases server response time, increasing the TTFB, which ends up frustrating the end-users.
Make sure your web hosting provider is using the up-to-date version of HTTP like HTTP/3 and HTTP/2. This will help to load the content in parallel over single TCP connection.
Secure Headers Test
Check if your site has secure headers to restrict browsers running from avoidable vulnerabilities
TTFB Test
Check how quickly your server responds to the requests made by the browser
TLS Scanner
Check the supported protocol, server preferences, certificate details, common vulnerabilities and more
Broken Link Checker
Check if your web page contains internal or external broken links
Whois Hosting
Find out the hosting provider of any site, quickly
DNS Record Lookup
DNS lookup for A, TXT, MX, SPF and NS records
Website Performance Audit
Find out how does your site perform against more than 40 essential metrics
HTTP Headers Checker
Test the headers are being advertised by your web server or network edge device
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