How Hosting Affects Site Speed
Visitors leave your site because it's too slow, even before they get to see your products/services. The speed at which a page loads relies on the web hosting services, particularly when servers have issues processing requests, along with multiple other factors. However, the hosting is not always the reason. This guide helps you learn how hosting affects site speed and identify the cause. You’ll also find how to choose the right solution without paying for an unnecessary upgrade.
How Hosting Affects Site Speed Before a Page Appears
The browser makes a request at the beginning whenever a user visits a site. Time to First Byte (TTFB) measures how long the browser takes to receive the first byte of the response after sending the request. TTFB depends on both the server’s processing time and network latency. Also, redirects and DNS lookups play their roles in making the process slower.
Anything above 0.8 seconds is worthy of attention; however, anything above 1.8 seconds needs to work. High TTFB can indicate a hosting issue, but heavy coding on your website has a delaying effect as well.
When You Have Reached the Limits of Your Hosting Plan
Every hosting plan sets limits. One limit caps the processor power your account can use, and another caps memory. The next one determines the number of processes that run simultaneously. When demand exceeds those limits, extra requests can join a queue. This means that you have reached the limit of your hosting plan resources.
Usage that repeatedly reaches a limit points to a capacity problem. Background tasks and inefficient code can cause the same pattern. Storage is also relevant. NVMe SSDs send data faster than SATA SSDs.
But SSDs are considered superior for latency as compared to hard disks. However, fast storage will be of no use if the queries for the database are inefficient; that is, the more the code demands from the database, the longer the wait.
Why Some Pages Load Faster Than Others
In the absence of caching, the server:
- Creates a new page on request by running the PHP scripts.
- Queries the database.
- Assembles the results and creates the HTML.
But if there is caching, it saves time and resources.
- The page cache stores the result, which means it stores the complete page.
- Object caching stores responses to common database queries.
- OPcache stores the compiled PHP code in memory, which prevents it from being recompiled.
The newer PHP versions work to improve optimization in WordPress more effectively than the old versions, and most hosting companies give you the ability to switch the PHP version within seconds. Web servers like NGINX and LiteSpeed handle multiple requests at once. A cached article loads far faster than a fresh build. A cart, an account page, or a members' area cannot be cached like this because each user sees different information. When you have a fast-loading home page and a slow checkout process, this problem is related to caching or processing of the checkout page. Incorrect caching can display stale cart contents and outdated price information.
How the Location of the Server Determines the Response Time
Data from the website is transferred quickly from the server to the visitor’s web browser, although not immediately, because distance adds delay. A visitor in Boston gets slower responses from an Oregon-based server than a Virginia-based one.
If your majority of customers are in the US, then you should choose an American data center. A CDN helps when your target market is diverse. Images and styles will be stored on different servers across the globe to make sure that they have a shorter distance to travel. CDN won’t speed up how fast your server builds the page. So a slow server response can still delay the page.
When Hosting Is Not the Cause Behind the Slow Speeds
If your TTFB looks good while the content loads too slowly, analyze what the browser downloads.
- Oversized pictures are one possible reason.
- Plugins and third-party scripts increase the workload.
- JavaScript can delay the content that visitors see.
They can also affect the Core Web Vitals of your site, which are measurements of certain factors related to the speed of loading and user experience. These factors are also relevant to SEO.
One of these factors is the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which is a measurement of how quickly the biggest content element seen on the page becomes visible. The recommended time for LCP is 2.5 seconds. Server latency will have a negative impact on LCP because the browser cannot locate the element until some part of the page loads. TTFB is not a Core Web Vital, but it does impact LCP. Two other vitals, Interaction to Next Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift, are extremely dependent on JavaScript execution and page layout. To sort the issue out, you can:
- Compress photos before uploading them.
- Get rid of unnecessary plugins.
- Execute a script only on necessary webpages.
How to Find Out Whether Your Hosting Slows Down Your Website Before an Upgrade
- Google PageSpeed Insights for a general overview
- WebPageTest or GTmetrix to analyze server response times.
- In Chrome DevTools, select the ‘Network’ tab and find the loading time of your main document.
- Google Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report shows which groups of pages have similar issues.
Test your website at two different times: during peak traffic hours and early in the morning when fewer visitors are online. A significant gap between the two is a sign of server load variations or resource limits. Fast results at both times, combined with a slow-loading page, point to the page itself.
For example, your homepage loads in 0.5 seconds at 8 p.m. and 0.4 seconds at 7 a.m. Your cart page will load in 0.9 seconds in the morning and 2.4 seconds in the evening. This implies that the cart page will load more slowly than your homepage during busy periods. Look into your resources and procedures you use to load the cart page and see whether the issue still exists after you have made adjustments.
Which Hosting Plan Is Right for Your Site?
A way to avoid hosting-related problems is to choose a suitable hosting plan rather than a costlier plan. The VPS hosting service offers dedicated resources, although its performance will depend on the hosting plan selected. It is suitable for a website that needs to be scalable beyond shared hosting.
Cloud hosting is ideal for traffic spikes during launches and special sales. It can offer flexible resources depending on traffic conditions and configuration settings. Dedicated Server hosting offers a complete physical server to an application or setup that consumes many resources.
Shared hosting involves many websites using one single server and is normally the solution for that at the lowest cost. Managed WordPress hosting is appropriate for those that seek assistance in managing and optimizing their sites. It is a service rather than a type of hardware, and hosting providers offer it on different hosting platforms.
Five Questions to Ask Your Host
- What are the CPU and RAM limits?
- Does it provide caching, and is it configurable?
- What versions of PHP do your hosting servers support?
- Where are your data centers located?
- Can I upgrade my plan without migrating the website?
Compare your responses to the test results you received. In case your account constantly reaches its limit, you should consider a plan with more resources.
Wrapping Up
Hosting affects site speed in two places: how fast the server answers the request and how well it copes when traffic arrives. You can test both. Load your site in the morning and again at peak time. Fast at both hours means the delay in your pages may be due to oversized images, too many plugins, or scripts running everywhere. If it's only slow when traffic is heavy, your plan is out of room. Find the cause before you change the plan.