Server response

Time to First Byte: server response time on a dealer website

Time to First Byte (TTFB) is how long a browser waits before the first piece of the page arrives from the server. Google's guidance is 0.8 seconds or less as good and over 1.8 seconds as poor. It isn't a Core Web Vital, but every other measure waits for it.

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What TTFB includes

Redirects, for example from the plain address to the www address.
Looking up the site's address and opening a secure connection.
The server building the page, which is usually the biggest part.

A timeline: redirects, DNS lookup, connection setup and the server building the page all happen before the first byte arrives. The rest of the page loads after it. — Everything before the first byte counts toward TTFB.

What is a good TTFB?

These are guides, not pass marks. Google treats TTFB as a warning sign for Largest Contentful Paint, which does count.

Google's guidance for Time to First Byte
Rating	TTFB
Good	0.8 seconds or less
Needs improvement	0.8 to 1.8 seconds
Poor	Over 1.8 seconds

What causes a slow TTFB on a dealer site

Inventory pages built fresh on every visit instead of being saved and reused.
Redirect chains from old campaign links or address changes.
Ad links with tracking codes that skip the saved copy of the page.
A server far from the shopper with no nearby copy of the site.

How to check it and who fixes it

PageSpeed Insights shows TTFB in its real-visit results, and the lab report's server response audit shows it for one visit. If it's slow on every page, it sits with your website provider: the hosting, the saved copies and the page building are theirs. Redirect chains in your ads and emails you can fix yourself.

The rest of the wait, after the first byte, is photos and tools. That part is what Site Speed Engine improves on any platform.

Sources

Questions

What does time to first byte mean?

The time from a browser asking for a page to receiving the first byte of it. It covers redirects, the connection and the server building the page.

What is a good time to first byte?

0.8 seconds or less, according to Google's guidance. Over 1.8 seconds is poor.

Is TTFB a Core Web Vital?

No. The Core Web Vitals are LCP, INP and CLS. TTFB comes before all of them, so a slow one makes LCP harder to pass.

How do I check time to first byte?

Run the page through PageSpeed Insights and look at the real-visit results, or the server response audit in the lab section. Chrome's developer tools also show it for each request.

How do I reduce time to first byte?

Serve saved copies of pages instead of building each one fresh, remove redirect chains, and use a content delivery network. On a dealer platform, most of this is the provider's to change.

Why is TTFB slow on some pages and not others?

Pages that can't be served from a saved copy, such as inventory searches with filters or links carrying ad tracking codes, are built fresh and take longer.