min read

Time to First Byte (TTFB)

Written by

Joe Krug

Edited by

TL;DR:

Time to First Byte (TTFB) measures the responsiveness of a web server and network connection. The metric shows the time between a resource request and the first byte of the response received.

What is Time to First Byte (TTFB)?

Time to First Byte (TTFB) measures the responsiveness of a web server and network connection. TTFB measures the time it takes between a resource request (like requesting info from the server) until the first byte of the response is received (on the front end of the website).

TTFB goes deep looking a redirect times, DNS lookups, connection and TLS negotiations, and the initial server response. Webflow handles most of what we need to be successful with this performance metric.

Server delays can make an efficient website move like a dinosaur. A slow server response usually equals a slow web page. A bad TTFB can waterfall into bad First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores.

Simply put—If your server is slow, your site loads slow.

Does TTFB influence SEO?

TTFB is not a ranking factor for search engines. While speed test metrics will not directly affect your website rankings, they are important principles for great web developers to understand. Bad scores that indicate a bad user experience may hurt your SEO if users bounce from your website.

What is a great TTFB score?

Our goal is a TTFB of 0.8 seconds or less.

How to optimize Webflow websites for Time to First Byte?

Minimize HTTP requests by combining JS and CSS files into single files. Instead of having 4 separate JS files, combine them into one. Note that this should be done by a professional because this action can have unexpected consequences if the combined code conflicts.
Use a reliable and powerful Content Delivery Network (CDN) to host JavaScript, CSS, video, and other heavy assets.

There are some suggested optimizations from the TTFB metric that we can’t do in Webflow. For example, we can’t host our project in Webflow, have access to server controls, database queries, server-side caching, or an SSL handshake. Webflow has this well-setup and we're OK not taking these TTFB suggestions.

Although you can export from Webflow and self host, we don't believe the TTFB benefits outweigh the benefits of the managed hosting platform Webflow offers.