How web hosting affects website speed

Blog provided by Rack Alley

In this age of convenience, website speed and efficiency are not luxuries, but expectations. According to data gathered by SOASTA, a delay in website loading time as small as 100 milliseconds can reduce conversion rates by 7 percent, while a delay as big as 2 seconds can increase bounce rates by 103 percent. Furthermore, Google knows users tend to click away from slow sites, so they rank slower sites lower in their search rankings. This could be a problem if you’re trying to promote your site through SEO.

There are multiple factors that affect website speed, but a number of them depend on the quality of your web host. For example, the type of hardware your web host uses and how your host divides its resources both play a crucial part in site speed. When it comes to hardware, web hosts that use SSDs (solid-state drives) rather than HDDs (hard disk drives) are much faster. Also, dedicated servers are faster than shared servers, since you won’t have to split bandwidth and RAM with other users.

Lastly, your web host’s location can also affect website speed. If your hosting provider is far from your website users, their data must travel a much longer distance to communicate with your web server. This adds precious seconds to your site’s loading time, so it’s best to find a web host close to your customers.

If you need a hosting provider close to Southern California, Rack Alley has an LA Data Center that provides quality service to the Los Angeles area. Contact them today for more details.