Is the TTFB for different locations and browsers irrelevant if you are self-hosting?
-
Please forgive my ignorance on this subject. I have little to no experience with the technical aspects of setting up and running a server.
Here is the scenario:
We are self-hosted on an Apache server. I have been on the warpath to improve page load speed since the beginning of the year. I have been on this warpath not so much for SEO, but for conversion rate optimization. I recently read the Moz Post "How Website Speed Actually Impacts Search Rankings" and was fascinated by the research regarding TTFB. I forwarded the post to my CEO, who promptly sent me back a contradictory post from Cloudflare on the same topic. Ily Grigorik published a post in Google+ that called Cloudflare's experiment "silly" and said that "TTFB absolutely does matter."
I proceeded to begin gathering information on our site's TTFB using data provided by http://webpagetest.org. I documented TTFB for every location and browser in an effort to show that we needed to improve. When I presented this info to my CEO (I am in-house) and IT Director, that both shook their heads and completely dismissed the data and said it was irrelevant because it was measuring something we couldn't control.
Ignorant as I am, it seems that Ilya Grigorik, Google's own Web Dev Advocate says it absolutely is something that can be controlled, or at least optimized if you know what you are doing.
Can any of you super smart Mozzers help me put the words together to express that TTFB from different locations and for different browsers is something worth paying attention to? Or, perhaps they are right, and it's information I should ignore?
Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!
Dana
-
Yes, very helpful guys. I appreciate it!
-
Thanks Igal and hopefully you have some info to work with Dana!
-
Many thanks to both Vadim and Igal for such great information and also a really great thread on the subject. I really, really appreciate your answers.!
-
Honestly, I don't know. I don't think TTFB was ever comparatively tested - at least no to the best of my knowledge.
For security, these are some of the resources I can point to.
I understand that this is not the main issue
Still, I wanted to provide some factual context to my previous statements.
http://zeroscience.mk/files/wafreport2013.pdf http://ddos-protection-services-review.toptenreviews.com/ http://tonyonsecurity.com/2012/11/13/protecting-your-website-cloudflare-or-incapsula/
(This last one is interesting since Tony is a COO of Sucuri. Some would call his our competitor. I prefer 'colleague' )
-
security wise it seems both of you guys have stellar options. for me the issue is performance, caching for dynamic sites, CDN performance, and in this case TTFB response. I was not sure with your response do you have faster TTFB to CF?
Thanks
-
Hi Vadim
Thanks.
Yep, I work for Incapsula but no, we are not the said "Mod".As for CF comparison... Generally speaking, we are more business oriented and security focused. I know that our security offering is more comprehensive, especially because both WAFs were comparatively pen-tested on several occasions and we always came out as consistently (and significantly) better option.We also have addition security features - like 2FA support and backdoor shell protection - which CF simply doesn't offer and we do more in way of ddos mitigation, especially against smart application layer attacks which require security capabilities, besides network muscle.
Still, speed wise, I always considered us to be pretty much on the same level. However, until few days ago I never considered TTFB to be such core SEO factor, so maybe we have better performance there...
But again, to be fair, I`m only speculating - mostly based on the CF blog you've shared.
(if TTFB is considered un-important, it might also be under developed...)Might be an interesting thing to test and document.
-
Hi Igal,
Do you work for incapsula, you are mentioned as a Mod on the blog?
I have heard great things about incapsula from others, but in terms of TTFB is it better than cloudflare? If so, how so?
Also any other ways that it excels Cloudflare? any ways its inferior to Cloudflare in your opinion?
Thanks I am really looking for more info, as I had great results with Cloudflares features and offering, wondering if I should give Incapsula a run
Thanks
-
I absolutely agree with Vadim. (+1)
Google is the best source for Google facts. Everything else is just speculation.
And yes, generally speaking, the best answer is to use a CDN....
The reason is simple. 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....
Now 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. -
Yea this makes sense as others have said that Cloudflare is trying to say that TTFB is not the most important metric, and so they published this study, as it aids their business model.
I would do just that listen to Google dev vs Cloudflare. Also the way I think about it even if their studies are true, where for the overall benefit TTFB would have to increase if you are using some compression, you still need to work and decrease your TTFB either way, that is just intuition. I apologize if I made it seem that TTFB is to be ignored, because Cloudflare state's that quite boldly,
Again some things that affect TTFB:
- Move your website to a faster/better server (If an option)
- Use a CDN or something similar to reduce the load on the server (repeated requests to a server will increase the TTFB)
- Reduce the time the server spends processing the request for information (sent above) and more here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10938682/how-to-reduce-server-wait-time
-
Thanks Vadim. Yes, this Cloudflare post is exactly the one I was referencing in my question. As I mentioned, Ilya Gregorik posted a rebuttal to their experiment here: post in Google+
It seems to me that if a Google developer says TTFB absolutely does matter that this would take precedence over anything Cloudflare might say.
What do you think?
-
Databases? Optimize any database queries that are slow This should help: http://www.techfounder.net/2011/03/25/database-profiling-and-optimizing-your-database-the-generic-version/
Now before you pass anything over to the IT this issue is a heated one in some cases where you have people saying that TTFB is not might not be the key metric to go after, here is more food for thought:
http://blog.cloudflare.com/ttfb-time-to-first-byte-considered-meaningles
"At CloudFlare we make extensive use of nginx and while investigating TTFB came across a significant difference in TTFB from nginx when compression is or is not used. Gzip compression of web pages greatly reduces the time it takes a web page to download, but the compression itself has a cost. That cost causes TTFB to be greater even though the complete download is quicker."
-
Thanks Vadim. This is helpful. In the first article the author writes:
"The only thing that is controllable is the server you are on." He suggests optimizing the database. What specific & measurable directive might I give to our IT manager that would accomplish this goal?
The second post looks very helpful indeed. I am downloading Microsoft's VRTA right now. It's a bit technically over my head, but I get the concepts. This should be something I can pass on to IT...however, it seems the info could be a bit dated (it repeatedly references IE 7)...Is there anything additional that might be more current?
Thanks again!
-
Hi Dana,
Yes TTFB is something you can control with the type of server you use. And where that server is in relation to your visitors. You cannot control the browsers they use, but hear are some thoughts on possible optimizations:
Server side: http://createdevelop.blog.com/2010/10/12/how-to-reduce-time-to-first-byte/
Location (plus other suggestions): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd188562.aspx
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Different content on different mobile browsers
Is it ok to run different html & different content on different mobile browsers even though the url is same. or the site can get penalize ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
Standalone Hosting Plan vs Multisite Hosting Plan for SEO?
I am looking to migrate my current site to Siteground so I was having a chat with the operator who is telling me that if I was to sign up a new hosting plan I would get additional SEO benefits.. can anyone confirm or deny this? Also while on the question, do certain domain/hosting providers offer better SEO/SERP rankings and if they do can anyone recommend any in Australia in Particular? The domain is a .com.au website Transcript: me: i have a website that is registered at crazydomains and Wordpress files hosted on my friends server... what would I need to do to have the domain/hosting transfered to SG?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IsaCleanse
Siteground Operator:.: Let me take a look at the website and I will provide you with a solution 🙂
me: thx
Siteground Operator:.: In this case you have two choices, you can either host it on your current plan or create a new one just for it
Siteground Operator:.: Getting a new plan will be a better choice in terms of SEO and performance
Siteground Operator:.: But you can run it on your current GrowBig as well
me: why will taht give it better SEO?
Siteground Operator:.: Because it will have its own cPanel and it will be a primary domain for it, instead of having it setup as an addon
me: How does Google know what the primary or secondary domain on my hosting plan?
Siteground Operator:.: It doest, as your file location will be primarydomain.com/addonslot
Siteground Operator:.: Compared to primarydomain.com if you put it in its own hosting plan
me: So im struggling to understand how this affects my SEO?
Siteground Operator:.: SERP is based on a couple of things, one of which is domain authority (DO). This tends to be a lot harder to build up with addon domains compared to domains hosted in their own plans.
Siteground Operator:.: Additionally, you will have 2 sites under a single IP address which is not the optimal solution you want to get
me: What would need to be done as far as transfering the WP installation/files/databse etc
Siteground Operator:.: As its stored on a local host you will have to upload a backup copy of your files and db on our server and we will configure it for you.
System: me has ended the chat0 -
Moving hosting to another company/server . What about SEO?
Hi, We have been experiencing issues with our hosting company and want to move the hosting to someone else. One problem was that we did Isapi rewrite rule but the company moved to mod rewrite and they never adjusted the rewrite rules. We are considering a move to another hosting company - would that hurt rankings? Are there any SEO considerations to think about when switching to another host?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alexkatalkin0 -
How to move blog to new domain with different theme & categories
I have a wordpress blog hosted on a separate domain. I have a new empty blog on a subdomain of my-commerce main site. The new blog has a different wordpress theme & categories than the old blog. What is a good way to populate the new blog with content from the old? What do I do with the old blog once the move is done? Thank you for your thoughts on this Handcrafter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stephenfishman0 -
Page disappears from search results when Google geographic location is close to offline physical location
If you use Google to search georgefox.edu for "doctor of business administration", the first search result is http://www.georgefox.edu/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA homepage from here on. The second page is http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/sfs/grad/tuition/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA program costs page from here on. Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration+site%3Ageorgefox.edu This appears to hold true no matter what your geographic location is set to on Google. George Fox University is located in Newberg, Oregon. If you search for "doctor of business administration" with your geographic location set to a location beyond a certain distance away from Newberg, Oregon, the first georgefox.edu result is the DBA homepage. Set your location on Google to Redmond, Oregon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RCF
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration But, if you set your location a little closer to home, the DBA homepage disappears from the top 50 search results on Google. Set your location on Google to Newberg, Oregon
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration Now the first georgefox.edu page to appear in the search results is the DBA program costs page. Here are the locations I have tested so far: First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA homepage Redmond, OR Eugene, OR Boise, ID New York, NY Seattle, WA First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA program costs page Newberg, OR Portland, OR Salem, OR Gresham, OR Corvallis, OR It appears that if your location is set to within a certain distance of Newberg, OR, the DBA homepage is being pushed out of the search results for some reason. Can anyone verify these results? Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?0 -
Site Penalty After Changing Hosting Companies?
In one week's time, we've dropped from #3 on Page 1 of Google to Page 7 (similar on Bing). It looks like our traffic started to drop on 9/5 to 9/7 and has been a steady, rapid decline ever since. 1000s of pages are indexed, just suddenly ranking poorly -- even for branded terms. History:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ddwilliamson
--In January, we switched to a web redesign & new domain
--In August, our hosting server was slow & kept crashing so we migrated our site to a new hosting company. We're not currently using the old hosting server. All domains, redirects, .htaccess files should now be correct and site speeds are improved.
--In early September, our NEW hosting company had a DNS issue causing more slow speeds and downtime for about 1 wk. Originally they thought it was htaccess so they changed our htaccess file - no luck - then discovered it was DNS. DNS issue was finally resolved on September 6th -- one day before the penalty/traffic issue seemed to begin.
-- According to GWMT, it looks like there were crawls completed around 9/4-9/5 What we've tried:
--Webmaster Tools - Googlebot dropoff since 9/5 (see attached screenshot). Nothing flagged. No site health alerts. Fetch as Google works. No manual webspam actions found.
-- W3C link checker, screamingfrog SEO spider, Xenu Link Sleuth, OSE (found some 4xx errors so we've updated those links)
-- Majestic SEO - backlinks reviewed 9/3 to 9/8
-- spoke to two different Adwords salespeople; unable to help
-- Bing Webmaster Tools
-- not showing organic search traffic since 9/6
-- 15% fewer pages crawled this month
-- top keywords are very odd -- stuff like "mt1 google apis" and "aaremel"
-- there are 4xx crawl errors under Crawl Information. We've fixed those URLs but they still appear in Webmaster Tools
-- some missing h1's and meta's, and dup titles, which we're working to fix
-- spike in crawl errors 9/11-9/12 and again on 9/14-9/15 It's been one thing after another this year, but all issues are now resolved with the exception of this newly-discovered penalty. We also have sites on a separate hosting server (with a different hosting company) that rank just fine. googlebot-crawls.jpg0 -
What are the SEO issues we should consider on a plug in that creates a custom home page based on zip code or GPS location.
We are developing a plug in the changes the home page relative to a users location or zip code. We believe this will provide users with a more personalized experience. We are concerned about how this might affect SEO. We are also wondering if we should partner with one of the SEO ply in developers. We were thinking about Yoast. Is there another partner that might be better? I would appreciate any feedback people can give.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ron_McCabe0 -
Different domains for multilingual website
Hey guys, A site that I'm currently working on as different domains for each website language. So for example: word1word2.com for the english version word3word4.com for the french version word5word6.com for spanish version .... Is it better to move all of the different languages to the same domain and use subfolders for each language /fr/... Please note that the domains being used bring in organic traffic as well as they are EMDs. Thank You.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BruLee0