RE: Web Host Speed

Matt, I'm not sure where you are located, but if you're in the USA, then =
I'd
suggest provided your isp has a goodly sized pipe to the internet (like =
for
example T1 or T3) then the actual speed of their line doesn't matter. =20

Here in Australia, sites are hosted all around the world.  Most of us =
find
hosting companies in the USA are cheaper than Australian based hosting
companies, so if we're using ColdFusion or Windows2000 or anything at =
all
special, we'll often use US based hosts.  And the site users usually =
never
notice the difference.  Even some really big sites are hosted in the =
USA. I
might be wrong but I do believe the Sydney Olympic2000 site was hosted =
in
the USA and that had millions of hits a day.

Factors that are more important than the ping figures you'll get (unless =
the
ping figures are horrendously bad) are things like the following:

How many other things are going on in the user's PC?
What kind of connection does she have? - modem?  ADSL? ISDN?
How many steps are there from your average user to the host - all of =
which
can cause bottlenecks you can't control
What else is going on along the path from your user to the host  =
-completely
outside your control (e.g. there are times when there is so much traffic
across the pacific that even simple US based sites time out)
What processing is your site doing before delivering pages - building
dynamic pages, database access etc
How much attention has the developer paid to caching parts of pages, =
writing
efficient code that runs quickly without additional loops and processes?
How much effort has gone into reducing page sizes - getting rid of =
nested
tables, optimising images, using CSS to reduce downloads of display =
elements
etc

When you add these factors up, they can far outweigh the impact of the
connection the host has to the internet, which is all the ping value =
tells
you.



Cheers,
Michael Kear
Windsor, NSW, Australia
AFP Webworks.




Matt wrote:

> This question isn't exactly about web design but it's pretty closely=20
> related.
>
> I am comparing ISPs that specialize in web hosting and want to avoid=20
> getting one that is slow.  I have used a free service on a site that=20
> will ping any domain name and tell how many milli-seconds it takes to=20
> get a control packet back.
>

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