Dr Webs Consultation Corner – Slow Servers

by | Feb 10, 2020 | Websites

“My wesite is really slow, especially when you try
to look at it on your phone. Is the server the problem
and who should I speak to about it?”

Will Ferrell

Will Ferrell

“Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.”

“My website is really slow and takes ages to load on my mobile.”, “Our clients SEO is being penalised by their PageSpeed results, can you take a look and recommend what can be done?”

These are questions that I get asked every day so I thought I would share some answers as well as give my LinkedIn connections the chance to ask their own. If you have questions about your website then comment below or PM me and I’ll give you an answer.

One of the most common complains is slow websites. Not only is this inconvenient to your visitors, even to the point that they click away, but also because it can and will effect your google rankings. We know how hard it is to get looked on favourably by the big ‘G’ at the best of times. However cool your website is, it will have a major impact on your online presence if it runs slow

PAgeSpeed Graphic
Captain Scott Caching Food

“I can imagine few things more trying to the patience than the long wasted days of waiting.”

Captain Robert Falcon Scott

A slow website can be down to many things and the best place to start is by typing your website address into pagespeed. This is a Google tool for developers but it will give you a quick idea of how your website stands up to what Google are looking for in a website, at least from a performance point of view. I wouldn’t expect any website owner to be able to fix things from here but it will allow you to start a conversation that may lead to getting a much faster, better built and higher ranking website. It is not my intention to make you into a web developer, but if things are not looking too rosy on your report then you can have that conversation rather than remaining in the dark.

It used to be that people complained about the speed of their internet connection, but more often than not these days, connection speed is not an issue. Even mobile phones over 4G can achieve speeds up to 60Mbps, that only a few years ago would have been appreciated over a broadband connection. This means that increasingly the speed of your webserver is coming into play.

Many web servers are hosted on shared servers. This means that there could be several websites running on the same server and fighting for the same resources. Some of them can be quite old or badly maintained, all adding to potential issues.

We prefer to have our clients servers hosted on individual virtual servers which means we can manage the resources to ensure they run as efficiently as possible. It also means that there is no chance of another website which may become broken, impacting on your site.

We are currently in the process of migrating many of our client servers to be hosted by AWS (Amazon Web Services) as part of their ongoing maintenance contract, because we believe that that is the best place for them to be hosted to get the best from their investment. It is always our aim to ensure that your website receives a continual investment and helps your business to prosper.

If you want to find out more about how we may be able to make your website perform better and faster, then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Remember, if you have a question just fire it at me and I will write about it in a plain English fashion that will help you to understand how your website should be adding to your business.

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