Page load speeds have become crucial to search engine rankings and bounce rates. Most website visitors will leave a page if it does not load within a few seconds, and the speed at which visitors leave a site (bounce rate) can negatively impact your Google search rankings. If you want to be sure that your page loads quickly, you'll need to find the fastest web hosting available. Doing so is a matter of conducting your own research and your own tests to determine the speed of a given host.
Read the Reviews
If you are in the market for the fastest web hosting, you don't have to do all of the detective work on your own. There are countless lists and reviews of web hosts out there, and it only takes a brief search to turn up complaints about slow host speeds and response time. With that said, not every review is accurate - and many hosts go out of their way to make sure that negative reviews of their service are buried deep within Google searches.
That does not, however, mean that looking at online reviews is useless. Take the time to use review lists to discount hosts with obviously poor reputations, as this will allow you the chance to zero your search in on the companies that are most likely to provide you with excellent speed.
Another way to find the fastest web hosting is to use this PDF which rates 40 low-cost web hosting services for page-load speed.
Know the Hardware
Once you've used online review lists to find the hosts with the best speed potential, you'll next need to start looking at the factors that will determine your actual host speed. The first factor to look at is hardware - what is the host using, and with how many people will you be sharing it? Generally speaking, hosts with more server capacity tend to be faster - as are hosts who have dedicated servers for individual clients. If you are working with a small company that is seeking to fit as many clients as possible on a machine that is outdated or overworked, your site's speed is going to be consistently slower than you would like.
Host Location
It's also helpful to know where your host's servers are located. Generally speaking, your site will respond faster if your host's servers are located closer to your potential visitors. That means a site looking to target visitors in the Southeastern United States might not be well-served by a host based out of Australia, or that a European website will probably want to avoid servers hosted out of California. While the difference in speed over distance can be negligible, the fastest web hosting will be that which is closest to your visitors.
Stress Test
No matter what else happens, you need to run your own tests to see how hosted sites respond when accessed from your location. Find a site that uses a particular host, and attempt to access it from your computer. Then repeat the process with a similar site from a different host. The kind of speed you get is likely going to be very similar to that received by your potential customers, so pay attention to load times. If you're not happy with how the sites of your competitors operate when hosted by a company, you'll likely not be very happy with how your own would operate.
Available Tools
Despite the importance of hardware and location, it is important to seek out web hosts that will allow you access to the tools necessary to speed up the loading time of your website. A user-friendly host will have various tools at its disposal to help you clean up your website, as well as tips and tricks to help you to create a clean design that will speed up your load times and decrease the frequency of visitor bounce. It takes a fair bit of effort to make a site that can outperform the expectations of a host, but it can be done.
The key to finding the fastest web hosting is research. You can start by looking at the work done by others, but you will eventually need to start working on your own. Make sure to look at the resources available from the host, as well as that host's location. Once you have the raw data available, put it to the test - and when you're done, you'll have a fair idea of how fast the host really might be. If you want the best hosting, you need to make sure that it is fast - and the only way to do that is to test it out yourself.
Read the Reviews
If you are in the market for the fastest web hosting, you don't have to do all of the detective work on your own. There are countless lists and reviews of web hosts out there, and it only takes a brief search to turn up complaints about slow host speeds and response time. With that said, not every review is accurate - and many hosts go out of their way to make sure that negative reviews of their service are buried deep within Google searches.
That does not, however, mean that looking at online reviews is useless. Take the time to use review lists to discount hosts with obviously poor reputations, as this will allow you the chance to zero your search in on the companies that are most likely to provide you with excellent speed.
Another way to find the fastest web hosting is to use this PDF which rates 40 low-cost web hosting services for page-load speed.
Know the Hardware
Once you've used online review lists to find the hosts with the best speed potential, you'll next need to start looking at the factors that will determine your actual host speed. The first factor to look at is hardware - what is the host using, and with how many people will you be sharing it? Generally speaking, hosts with more server capacity tend to be faster - as are hosts who have dedicated servers for individual clients. If you are working with a small company that is seeking to fit as many clients as possible on a machine that is outdated or overworked, your site's speed is going to be consistently slower than you would like.
Host Location
It's also helpful to know where your host's servers are located. Generally speaking, your site will respond faster if your host's servers are located closer to your potential visitors. That means a site looking to target visitors in the Southeastern United States might not be well-served by a host based out of Australia, or that a European website will probably want to avoid servers hosted out of California. While the difference in speed over distance can be negligible, the fastest web hosting will be that which is closest to your visitors.
Stress Test
No matter what else happens, you need to run your own tests to see how hosted sites respond when accessed from your location. Find a site that uses a particular host, and attempt to access it from your computer. Then repeat the process with a similar site from a different host. The kind of speed you get is likely going to be very similar to that received by your potential customers, so pay attention to load times. If you're not happy with how the sites of your competitors operate when hosted by a company, you'll likely not be very happy with how your own would operate.
Available Tools
Despite the importance of hardware and location, it is important to seek out web hosts that will allow you access to the tools necessary to speed up the loading time of your website. A user-friendly host will have various tools at its disposal to help you clean up your website, as well as tips and tricks to help you to create a clean design that will speed up your load times and decrease the frequency of visitor bounce. It takes a fair bit of effort to make a site that can outperform the expectations of a host, but it can be done.
The key to finding the fastest web hosting is research. You can start by looking at the work done by others, but you will eventually need to start working on your own. Make sure to look at the resources available from the host, as well as that host's location. Once you have the raw data available, put it to the test - and when you're done, you'll have a fair idea of how fast the host really might be. If you want the best hosting, you need to make sure that it is fast - and the only way to do that is to test it out yourself.
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