Is a Dedicated Server a Worthwhile Investment?
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Greeting MOZ Community:
Our site is hosted on a virtual private server. Apparently there are dozens of other web sites hosted on the same server. The performance is usually pretty fast, with the site downloading in 1-3 seconds. However, a few times per month, the performance slows down, to say 5-6 seconds. Please see the attached image.
I suspect this may have something to do with the other web sites on the server.
Currently we pay about $60/month. A dedicated server would cost about $120/month. Would site performance be more consistent on a dedicated server? Could we enjoy potential SEO benefits by having our own server, i.e. could we rank slightly higher if the speed was more consistent and the performance slightly faster?
Thanks, Alan
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I don't think that can be had for the price. I pay around $260 for a single xeon with a ssd and 8 gig.
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The answer will depend to a degree on the load that your traffic places on the server and the quality of the equipment in your server.
If you get one with a nice amount of memory, fast processor and solid state harddrive then the speed increase could be so pronounced that you will be able to tell when it goes into service without being told... at the same time that could be overkill if your traffic is modest.
Getting efficient images and caching working could have a greater impact on speed than the equipment.
If you do both then you will have the best situation.
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You cut-off load sample size on your screenshot. If the sample size is low, the data is not that accurate and more measurement may be needed.
You are right though, one of the key factors in migration to a dedicated server is your page load times.
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If you can give a bit more info about the site that would help.
Cost Benefit and load time can be subjective depending on the industry and also what load time is for the normal user and how much "Load Time" is the next issue to tackle on your SEO list of things to do. You might get far more gains in authority by focusing on core weaknesses such as content, social, and link building that you will gain from the cost spend on a dedicated server
Hope that that is useful.
Bruce
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