Improve Server Response Time
What is server response time and when does it get triggered?
The server response time is the time taken by a web server to respond to a browser’s request. Slow server response accounts for 10% of total time delay when it comes to a slow web page response. Discounting the time it takes for latency between the networks of the server and Google, the server response time is calculated as the amount of time it takes for the requested web page or web content to load.
Server response time = Time to load HTML for rendering a web page - Network latency between your server and Google (or any other webserver)
The rule for improving server response time is triggered when the response time of the server is detected to be above 200 milliseconds.
Why is improving server response time?
Google recommends that you reduce the server response time to below 200 milliseconds. Several reasons contribute to slow server response. These include slow applications, slow routing, memory starvation and so on. To figure out why the server response time is high, you need to measure all these factors to resolve any bottlenecks.
How to improve server response time?
To resolve issues with a slow server, pay attention to the following:
- Inspect the current performance data - There are several hosted an open-source web applications that can help you in monitoring and gather this data
- Fix the bottlenecks - All leading content management platforms and web frameworks issue performance optimization guidelines which you can follow to resolve any issues and improve server response time.
- Reduce the usage of resources on your site - Stylesheets, HTML files, images and all such resources require time to download. To reduce the resource usage consider consolidating your files. For smaller scripts or styles, consider including them in the HTML to eliminate the need for a request and fetch.
- Database optimization - If your website retrieves data from a database, ensure that the database is optimized as well. The major reason for a slow server response is responding to a slow database query. Use appropriate indexes, write queries keeping performance in mind, and group objects such as views and table to improve the schema of the database.
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