TTFB measures the wait before anything arrives: the request travelling to the server, the server working out a response, and the first byte travelling back. It is not one of the Core Web Vitals, but a slow TTFB delays everything after it, including Largest Contentful Paint.
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What makes it slow
- A slow server or database that builds each page on request
- Redirect chains before the final page
- Visitors far from the server with no CDN
- Heavy server-side rendering with no caching
Ways to improve it
Cache pages that do not change per visitor, serve them from a CDN close to the reader, remove unnecessary redirects and look at slow database queries. Measure with real-user data where you can, since lab tests from one location can mislead.
Common mistakes
Fixing front-end weight first
If the server is slow, compressing images will not remove the wait before the page starts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Google does not list it as one directly. It matters through the experience metrics it affects, and because slow servers can reduce how much Googlebot crawls.
Keep reading
- CDN (Content Delivery Network): A CDN is a network of servers around the world that stores copies of your site so each visitor gets it from a nearby location.
- Core Web Vitals: Core Web Vitals are Google's three user-experience metrics: loading (LCP), responsiveness (INP) and visual stability (CLS).
- Largest Contentful Paint: Largest Contentful Paint measures how long it takes for the biggest image or text block in the viewport to appear. Good is 2.5 seconds or less.
- Server-Side Rendering: Server-side rendering builds a page's HTML on the server for each request, so browsers and crawlers receive complete content without running JavaScript.
- AMP: AMP is a web framework for building fast-loading pages under strict rules on JavaScript and CSS. Google no longer requires it for the Top Stories carousel.
- Cache-Control: Cache-Control is an HTTP header that tells browsers and CDNs whether and how long to store a response. Good caching makes repeat loads and crawls faster.
- Canonical URL: A canonical URL is the version of a page search engines treat as the main one when several URLs show the same or very similar content.
- Canonicalization: Canonicalization is the process of choosing one preferred URL when several pages have duplicate or very similar content, so search engines know which version to show.
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