Many articles on the Internet tend to focus on the front-end WordPress optimization and fast ways to speed up the website. Server optimizations, such as network latency, are sometimes ignored or ignored. Therefore, we thought it would be interesting to learn more about the importance of network latency and its impact on WordPress sites when loading different areas.
although CDN can definitely help reduce network latency, your host server location is still very important, especially if you are serving visitors in a very specific geographic location. Delay is important, and we’ll show you several reasons.
what is network delay?
network latency refers to the time and / or delay involved in transmitting data over the network. In other words, how long does it take for a packet to travel from one point to another. Today, this is usually measured in milliseconds, but it can also be seconds, depending on the network. The closer to zero, the better.
delay is the wait time introduced by signals over geographical distances and through various communication devices. -Whatis.com
in other words, the farther the distance, the greater the delay, which is equivalent to a longer delay. When it comes to data transmitted over fiber-optic cables, you cannot exceed the speed of light. For example, here is a map of the Google Cloud Platform network. They have thousands of miles of cable covering the whole earth at the bottom of the sea. This is one of the reasons why it is one of the fastest networks in the world. Even with this extensive, state-of-the-art network, there is always a delay. The delay of
fiber optic cable
has several different factors that can lead to network delay, including:
- Transmission delay: different types of media, such as wireless or fiber optic connections, introduce some type of delay because they can only produce so many bits. For example, the transmission delay of an optical fiber connection will be lower than that of a T1 line. You must also consider the size of the packet.
- Propagation delay: this is the time required for the packet to propagate. This may include distance, network latency, and so on.
- Queuing delay: if the bandwidth is exceeded, there may be a queuing delay, and the data must wait at the host or router. This may be affected by network congestion.
Why network latency is important
some people may argue that network latency is not very important, but it may have something to do with where you choose to host WordPress sites. For media and your assets (such as images, JavaScript, CSS, video), CDN can address many additional latency issues by providing copies from closer servers. However, in most configurations, you still need to query your managed server to get the initial DOC load. This is why delay is so important!
Trainline reduced latency across the channel by 0.3 seconds, costing customers an extra 8 million pounds ($11.5 million) a year. -WPO Statistics
latency is particularly important for enterprises that provide services to visitors from specific geographic locations. For example, suppose you have an e-commerce store in Sydney and 90% of your customers are from Australia. Your business will definitely benefit by placing your website on a server in Australia instead of hosting it in Europe or the United States. We will discuss how much impact it has on your site below.
comparing Google Cloud network delay
distance is one of the main reasons for delay. However, it is important to remember that latency is affected not only by distance, but also by the number of hops it produces, intermediate routers, and so on. Several methods to measure network latency include Ping, Traceroute, and MTR. In this example, we will simply use ping time and run some traceroute tests. If you really want to dig into the data, you can run the traceroute command.
so we started several test machines on Google Cloud Platform in different geographic areas. Many other managed service providers use Google Cloud’s standard layer network, which results in slower speeds.
- perf1 host (Iowa, USA)
- perf2 host (Sydney, Australia)
- perf3 host (Frankfurt, Germany)
then we use KeyCDN’s free Ping testing tool, which allows us to test from 14 locations at the same time. Remember, the shorter the ping time, the better, because it is directly related to the delay time (in milliseconds) required for the data to be transmitted through the Internet to its destination address and then returned to you. We also used their traceroute tool.
Perf1 (Iowa, USA)
has much lower ping time in the United States (the average ping time to Dallas is 16 milliseconds) for test servers located in Iowa. When you start diving into Europe or Singapore, you begin to experience higher average ping time (the average ping time to Singapore is 244ms).
Ping time perf1 (USA)
if we compare Traceroute, you can see an example that seven additional network hops are required from Iowa to Frankfurt, Germany (compared to 10 hops from Dallas). This is why it is important to remember that network hops also affect network latency.
Traceroute perf1 (US)
Perf2 (Sydney, Australia)
for the test server located in Sydney, Australia, the ping time in Australia and Asia Pacific is much lower (the average ping time to Sydney is 1 millisecond). When you start going deep into Europe or South America, you begin to experience a higher average ping time (the average ping time to S ã o Paulo is 319ms).
Ping time perf2 (Australia)
if we compare Traceroute, you can see an example that 14 additional network hops are required from Sydney, Australia to Frankfurt, Germany.
Traceroute perf2 (Australia)
Perf3 (Frankfurt, Germany)
has much lower ping time for test servers in Frankfurt, Germany, Europe and even the United States, which may be due to the fast backbone connection between the two (the average ping time to Amsterdam is 7 milliseconds). When you start diving into Asia Pacific or South America, you begin to experience higher average ping time (the average ping time to Singapore is 308ms).
Ping time perf3 (Germany)
if we compare Traceroute, you can see an example that 11 additional network hops are required from Frankfurt, Germany to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Traceroute perf3 (Germany)
so, as you can see above, the greater the distance, is directly related to the higher ping time and the additional network hops that make up the network delay. This is why you should strategically position your WordPress site to reduce these two factors. Google Cloud latency
between
comparison regions above we are testing the Ping time of the location of the server associated with the ping server. But what about the latency between the Google Cloud Platform regions themselves? Geek Flare performed excellent tests in nine different regions. This allows you to quickly understand the delays caused by delays when placed in one area and another.
Google Cloud Platform delay (source Geek Flare)
compare page load time
of course, we ignored the total page load time. In fact, these are some of the most interesting data. Keep in mind, however, that this includes other factors, such as TTFB. All three test sites are the same, running the newly installed WordPress and installing the 2017 theme. We are also using Pingdom, so time is measured from their test server location.
Perf 1 (Iowa, USA)
We conducted speed tests from three different test sites using a server located in Iowa, USA, and the results are as follows.
Speed Test perf1 Dallas
Speed Test perf1 Australia
Speed Test perf1 Stockholm
as we have seen above, there is a huge difference between loading sites in the United States (close to managed servers) and loading sites from around the world.
Perf 2 (Sydney, Australia)
We used a server in Sydney, Australia to conduct speed tests from three different test sites, and the results are as follows.
Speed Test perf2 Dallas
Speed Test perf2 Melbourne
Speed Test perf2 Stockholm
as we have seen above, there is a huge difference between loading sites in Australia (close to managed servers) and loading sites from around the world.
Perf 3 (Frankfurt, Germany)
We conducted speed tests from three different test sites using a server in Frankfurt, Germany, and the results are as follows.
Speed Test perf3 Dallas
Speed Test perf3 Melbourne
Speed Test perf3 Stockholm
as we have seen above, there is a huge difference between loading sites from within Europe (close to managed servers) and loading sites from around the world.
if these page load tests don’t convince you, we don’t know what will happen! For example, a test site in Iowa takes only 368 milliseconds to load from Dallas. But it takes 2.14 seconds to load from Sydney, Australia. That’s why position is important! Similarly, you can help reduce the total load time by using CDN to bring media assets closer to visitors. But you will always encounter load times and delays from the host server, so choose wisely.
choose the right location to host your WordPress website
most WordPress hosting service providers usually allow you to choose from different locations to host your site. This allows you to strategically place your site where you need to ensure low latency and TTFB, as well as extremely fast load times. You can also choose a different location for each individual site.
Google Cloud data Center location
is not sure which one to choose? Here are some tips.
Tip 1-check Google Analytics
the first thing you can do is check the geographic location of your visitors in Google Analytics. In the following example, you can see that more than 90% of the traffic comes from the United States. Therefore, in most cases, you want to put the WordPress site on a server in the United States. You can filter data to cities, but we usually recommend central locations like Iowa. Geographic data
hint 2 in
Google Analytics-check e-commerce data
if you run an e-commerce store, be sure to also check where your customers come from. This is certainly the way you generate revenue, so these are your most important visitors. This should be consistent with the traffic above you, but this is not always the case. If you have e-commerce data settings or goals, you can easily overlay that information on geographic data to make more informed decisions.
Tip 3-Quick latency testing
has many convenient free tools to measure latency at your current location for different cloud providers. This can help you quickly assess which area may be the best choice for your site.
- GCP Ping (measured delay to the Google Cloud Platform area)
- CloudPing.info (measured delay to the Amazon Web Services area)
- Azure latency testing (measuring latency to Azure area)
measures Google Cloud Platform latency
you can also use CloudHarmony, which is a cloud comparison tool. You can test things such as latency, DNS, uplinks, and downlinks.
CloudHarmony Network Test
Fast methods for reducing Network delay
all in all, here are some fast ways to reduce network latency.
- as we showed you above, putting your WordPress site on a server closer to visitors should be a top priority. This helps to reduce ping time and network hops.
- leverages the content delivery Network (CDN) to serve caching assets from POP around the world. This helps eliminate network latency for visitors who may not be near your host server. With parallelization,
- uses the HTTP/2 protocol to minimize the number of round trips.
- Reduce the number of external HTTP requests. Each can increase its own latency based on the location of its server.
- uses a premium DNS provider with fast lookup time.
- performs tasks in the background using prefetching and pre-rendering when the page is loaded.
- implement some of the advanced tips we provide in this large guide how to speed up your WordPress site (the ultimate guide)
summary
hopes that now you know more about network latency, its importance, and how it affects your WordPress site. To ensure fast load time, be sure to select the server where the host is closest to visitors and customers. What do you think? Do you have any thoughts? Have you ever experienced a slow load time because the site was placed in the wrong place? Please tell us in the comments below.
