Question
The initial website appearance time (Time To First Byte) takes much time. What can be done to improve it?
Answer
Note: To get an idea what is a good value, compare your website performance against big service providers such as Google, Youtube, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.
Time To First Byte (TTFB) is a metric that depends on many variables. It can equally be intertwined either with the destination server side of things or any other node of the connection route.
First of all, check if the issue relates to Network particularities.
Network
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On Windows server, open website locally and check TTFB with browsers Development mode (can be enabled in any browser with F12).
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On Linux server execute the below command with websites URL:
# curl -s -w 'nLookup time:tt%{time_namelookup}nConnect time:tt%{time_connect}nSSL handshake time:t%{time_appconnect}nPre-Transfer time:t%{time_pretransfer}nRedirect time:tt%{time_redirect}nTime to first byte:t%{time_starttransfer}nnTotal time:tt%{time_total}n' -o /dev/null http://example.com
If TTFB in local environment reduces significantly (more than 500ms), contact system administrator to test network connection bandwidth (iperf) and stability (mtr).
If most of bandwidth is…