How Web Hosting Affects Your Website Performance

How Web Hosting Affects your Website Speed

A web host’s role is to securely store your website’s content, videos, pictures and more. This is why web hosting is so important to get your website on the internet and accessible to the world.

Here are some ways your website’s speed is affected through your web host:

Server hardware

The physical infrastructure of the web host’s server is probably the first thing that should be mentioned. Server specs like the amount of CPU cores, the amount of RAM allocated to each site, and the speed of the hard drives are the bread and butter of hosting. A web host should have solid-state drives, fast RAM and the latest CPUs that enable fast handling of user requests and background operations to run smoothly and efficiently.

Geographic network presence

It is common for companies to send your data to overseas data centers. If the servers of a hosting company are located in another country, it will negatively affect the speed and performance of your website. Hosts with data centers and network points that are located in the same region and/or country as their users are known to have faster speeds.

Server Software Optimization

This is the meat and potatoes of how servers get work done so that web hosts can provide hosting to so many users. Servers running software like NGINX (pronounced “engine-x”) which is designed to handle thousands of websites at once. Also, having PHP code to power websites and handle website requests sets a robust foundation for fast responding websites.

Network Connectivity

Finding out what type of network cables a web host is using may not be possible, but a fast network is a must for any hosting company. A fast network connects your website to the internet quickly and has adequate to high bandwidth available. A good web host will have network system that will have these vital hosting network requirements in focus:

• Network bandwidth capacity: This means the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted at once within the web host’s network infrastructure.
• Network redundancy: When a host has multiple streams of internet service providers (ISPs) to ensure that hosting service can still be provided to customers in case of outages.
• Network latency: Getting content from the servers to the rest of the world as soon as it is available is important. Latency refers to the time it takes for content to go from the servers to the rest of the world. The lower the latency, the faster the content is traveling.

Site Architecture

How a website is constructed can have a major impact on its speed. All web hosts provide some type of site builder that users can either build themselves or hire someone to build for them. Site builders that have been around for a long time, such as WordPress, are tried and true to provide the necessary tools to build a great website. The site architecture is not controlled by the host provider but the user. Checkout our WordPress guide and learn how to build a webpage.

How Hosting Affects SEO

Your hosting provider plays a significant role on how well your SEO performs. Here are a few areas where the hosting provider affects your SEO:

Website Speed

How fast your website pages load is a crucial factor for your SEO rankings. When your website is moving fast, your SEO ranks higher on search engines like Google and Bing. This means if your hosting provider has slow servers, your website will be slow and in turn, your SEO rankings will drop. Search engines put fast loading pages at the top of their lists. If you want to make sure your site is top priority, make sure your host has fast servers.

Server Uptime

Every server has to update from time to time and that comes with an expected downtime. The rest of the time the server is running is called uptime. The higher the uptime, the higher the server’s reliability. The normal uptime for a hosting provider’s server is 99.9% of the time, and that includes updates and unexpected server changes. When it comes to SEO, the more your website is up, the more search engines can crawl your website and positively impact your SEO. If your website is down too often, then the search engine’s site crawlers will deem your website as unreliable and not crawl your site. This will hurt your SEO ranking.

Server Location

Where your web host’s servers are located plays a big role on how effective your SEO can be. If the location of the servers are too far away, it can create latency and performance issues for your website which hinders the potency of your SEO. Having a host with servers that are within a reasonable locale, can have a slight speed advantage when SEO is targeted to local or regional visitors.

Scalability

When it’s time for you make your first website, it can feel daunting because most websites don’t start out with a flood of visitors. As you work on your brand, marketing, and SEO, your website gains recognition. Once your website gains popularity, you gain more visitors. If your host cannot accommodate the influx of visitors, the increase of traffic will slow down your website and negatively affect your website ranking. Here at Northwest, we offer multiple hosting options that will scale with your website as you grow.

Website Security

When a website is unsecured or dealing with any form of malware, then it can be removed from search engine listings on Google, Bing and others. Any place that offers security and peace of mind is usually a place that people want to go to. The same principle applies to your website. A good host that provides strong security with automatic updates, SSL included in hosting plan and protection against malware will make your website will be more favorable for higher search engine rankings.

Northwest offers SSL with every hosting plan and automatic security updates at no extra charge.

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