Server is in the USA and most traffic is from EUROPE, is much delay about this

Basically if a VPS Server is in the USA and most traffic is from EUROPE, is much delay about this?

If plan buy a new Server and my Registrar offers VPS MANAGED ONLY IN the USA, Then best find other EUrope offered VPS Registrar…?

If most of your traffic is from Europe, then yes, I’d get a server hosted in Europe.

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In case stay with same Registrar and VPS is in USA…

Approximately how much is the delay/latency between http requests for USA vs EU VPS? 1GB RAM Cent OS 6.7 both also client users PCs the same in both

I think but could very well be wrong that having a European server would only make a difference the first time a page is loaded. Page included files should be cached (in Europe) and subsequent page loading time decreases because of the cached files.

The reasoning behind my thoughts is using the free Pingdom web testing tool. Testing pages more than once decreases the load time and selecting another server inititially increases the page time… Unless your page included files cannot be cached.

Try this webpage test and notice the decline in subsequent tests then try another server, possibly the one in Melbourne, Australia.

Note the trailing numeric parameter requests the number of displayed thumbnails. Also note that AmpProject techniques are used to display “above the fold” content.

Edit:
Simplified explanation.

This is an important observation. Considerations though:

  • The first visit is often the most important first impression. Slow is bad.
  • Some users use private or incognito browsing, or they clear their cache at the end of every day, or session.
  • Some users use multiple devices, or public ones that may have their own caching policies
  • Some content cannot be or is not cached.

Nonetheless, what @John_Betong says is accurate, any content that you’re allowing to be cached will result in a quicker load time on subsequent loads.

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Slightly off-topic, but I notice you keep referring to your “registrar”. You do understand, don’t you, that a registrar is the business with whom you register your domain, while a hosting company provides hosting. Some businesses do both, but there is no necessity to host your site with your registrar, and in some cases advantages in not doing so.

I think files on my California, USA server are cached in Europe, the first time the page is loaded by a European server. The included files are then available to all other European surfers.

Anybody who accesses the page a second time will also have the benefit of having included files saved in their personal browser cache. Using a different personal browser will not have access to the previous downloaded cache files.

The benefit of a European cache reduces international traffic. Cache is cheaper than transferring files between continents.

Edit:
Pingdom allows selecting different continents for testing and comparing download speeds. Testing the same page from a continental server is always quicker the second time because the included files are cached on the continental server.

It seems you are confusing a few aspects.

If you have your website on a normal web server in USA and a visitor from Europe visit it, then there is no server or system in Europe that will cache the content by default.

If you access the internet through your ISP proxy server, it is possible that there is a cache layer there. But in most cases users do not use this anymore, other than to bypass security systems that prevent content being shown if the user is not from USA etc.

By default, if the object (image, css file etc.) is allowed to be cached, the user will cache the information on their computer, and by that any new visits to the site will be faster.

This means if there is two users accessing the webpage from Europe, they will both need to download all of the content the initial time. Similar to how two users from USA does the same.

What can be done to speed up the load process, is setting up a CDN (Content Delievery Network), where static parts (like images, css files, js files etc.) are served to the user through the CDN system. This way you can provide those files from different parts of the world, while the main code is still on the server in USA. By doing this you can drastically reduce the load time, and almost have the same result as if you had the server there.

In this scenario the two users still download all of the content the initial time, but the difference is that all of the static files are downloaded from the European CDN system, and the main content from the USA server.

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I am surprised especially considering that caching in Europe would be less expensive than having to repeatedly transfer files between continents. Looks like I will have to resurrect my CDN account :slight_smile:

[off-topic] You will be delighted to know the site mentioned in your portfolio loads very quickly in South Asia and I assume is due to a CDN.
/off-topic]

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