What Is Server Response Time?
Server response time, often measured as Time to First Byte (TTFB), is the elapsed time from when a web server receives an HTTP request to when it begins sending the response. It includes DNS lookup, TCP connection, TLS handshake, and server processing time. A fast TTFB is typically under 200ms; anything over 600ms is considered slow.
Why It Matters for SEO
Server response time is a Core Web Vitals supporting metric and directly affects crawl efficiency. If your server takes 2 seconds to respond to each request, Googlebot will crawl fewer pages per session, reducing your effective crawl budget. Google has confirmed that TTFB is a factor in their page experience signals. Slow TTFB also increases Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which is a Core Web Vital.
How to Measure and Improve
Enable the %D (microseconds) or %T (seconds) directive in your Apache log format, or use the $request_time variable in Nginx. This records the actual processing time for each request in your access log. Analyze these values by URL pattern to find slow endpoints. Common fixes include database query optimization, caching, and CDN deployment.
📖 Related Article: Core Web Vitals Guide — Read our in-depth guide for practical examples and advanced techniques.
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