How to improve Time to First Byte? Page Load Speed

[lhawk]

I am working with a ecommerce site that is having major issues with their load speed. The ttfb is...wait for it...7911 ms.

I am not even sure where to start with this issue. If you have any recommendations, it would be appreciated.

Is it the clients servers that are slow? They have went through multiple redesigns and have some code that could probably be deleted but I don't think it would make it that slow.

[Igal_Zeifman]

Hi Ian
These are all good suggestions. Accidentally (SSL excluded) these are all covered by modern CDNs, which do much more than just proxy.

• Memory vs. disk caching: Memory is faster

  CDNs will cache from memory by providing free/low-cost access to very large pool of resource, which most website owners couldn't utilize otherwise. (each proxy location will have ~10 high-powered servers that allocate memory for caching)

• Server configuration: Is your database on the same server as your web server? That's a problem, if true.

  This is a core CDN capability. The cached web content is served from proxy while database complies in the background and serves the rest of the materials.

• Database caching: Is your e-commerce system using it? The first hit on the database is a huge hit on performance.

  This is a great suggestion and - unlike other points - this is not a default CDN feature. However, this problem can be solved by intelligent caching heuristic. What I mean is that by monitoring resource usage over large pool of visitors an intelligent CDN system can identify dynamically generated objects which are not often changed, yet still un-cached due to their dynamic "origin".

  Pinpointing such objects and caching them in the way that ensures personalization and freshness will reduce the impact of database processing. For example, typical e-commerce site and will dynamically generate the product list from DB when in fact most products specifics (the image, the text, the pricing, etc) will not change over the product life-cycle. For all states and purposes these are static resources, yet they are being generated dynamically, for the lack of the better option...

  If you CDN can identify such instances and move in to cache these parameters, you will benefit from 30-50% improvement, on top of the usual 30-40% CDN factor.

  What I`m describing here is not future-tech but a patent-pending algorithms which are already used by the industry. You can find out more here:http://www.incapsula.com/the-incapsula-blog/item/414-advanced-caching-dynamic-through-learning

[wrttnwrd]

True TTFB is improved by changes to your basic server configuration, not a CDN. A CDN will improve delivery of static and cached files, but may not impact TTFB the way you need it to.

My gut tells me you need to look at:

• Database caching: Is your e-commerce system using it? The first hit on the database is a huge hit on performance.
• Memory vs. disk caching: Memory is faster
• SSL versus non-SSL for non-secure pages. SSL will slow performance and should only be used where security is an issue, like during checkout or on login pages.
• Server configuration: Is your database on the same server as your web server? That's a problem, if true.

[Igal_Zeifman]

Generally speaking, the best answer is to use a CDN.
CNDs proxy technology, which was designed to minimize "physical" distances between the site's content and browsers, directly influences TTFB. Being an in-house SEO for a CDN company I get a lot of questions about this from our support and clients. I have to admit, until recent Moz post, I wasn't aware of full implications of TTFB and considered it to be one of few page load speed related metrics.  (http://moz.com/blog/how-website-speed-actually-impacts-search-ranking)

This post really helped me get a better grasp on things. Interestingly enough, few month ago one of our clients Guest Posted in our blog about speed improvement gained by our free plan. Among other things, he mentioned 70% improvement in TTFB (grade going from F to A) 
(http://www.incapsula.com/the-incapsula-blog/item/718-what-incapsula-free-did-for-my-site)

At the time I didn't give it much attention. Because, like many others, I was focusing on overall load speeds....

I can't help but feel that this was a missed opportunity. This post could be even better with the added SEO angle...
If anyone here is interested in giving this a try and guest posting about it, I`ll be happy to provide all resources needed on our end.

[lhawk]

I guess by just looking at the IP, it's in Atlanta. I changed the settings on the page load tools to various places across the US so this shouldn't be a factor should it?

[RyanKent]

I thoroughly enjoyed your response Harald. I never would have considered switching from Amazon S3 to Amazon Cloud Space. The improved performance you experienced is amazing.

[mediabase]

Hi Lhawk, First of all I advice you to look at below link for proper understanding of the Time to First Byte.

Time to first byte (TTFB)

I hope that above content helps you to understand the TTFB.

Now its time to reduce the TTFB which is most important for a web page because it overall reduces the loading time & helps to load page faster & overall website performance is increased.

For more details see the 12 steps to faster web pages.

I hope tat your query had been solved.

editor's note: source for this answer at http://www.creativedevelopment.com.au/web-design/reducing-time-to-first-byte-ttfb/

[BenRush]

Where are the servers relative to your access point?