First byte time: A (without cf), B (with cf)

Getting Started
#1

Hello

my website test result on webpagetest.org

first byte time is A without CF and
first byte time is B with CF

actually it was even F with CF yesterday but found the info that I should turn on the " Always Use HTTPS" setting and it became F to B straight away

now I want to make it A since it’s A wihtout CF

Can I know how I can do this?

Thank you

Argo or pro plan for colo=right location cdn?
#2

The TTFB will decrease if the resource isn’t cached by Cloudflare, especially on the Free plan without Argo. That is just simply due to the fact of the multiple additional steps for the resource to get to you.

You need to make sure Cloudflare caches the resources and TTFB isn’t always the best metric to check site speed.

#3

I use wordpress + w3 total cache + CF and set everything cached by CF

so Argo is the thing I need to make TTFB from B to A?

#4

Yea and no and I don’t think it’s worth it for that simple thing, it doesn’t really matter.

Maybe @sdayman can help with Wordpress.

#5

not sure if this is related but there’s another issue which is that

website randomly start responding late for page navigation (didn’t have this issue without CF)

it happens like once every 10~20 page loading test for random inner pages
it just idling like 3~5 seconds before start responding and navigate to the next page

really want to fix this issue and make things clear

#6

One thing that can help me tomorrow is the actual website URL.

Usually there is a specific resource having issues, we’ll have to check what that is, but it seems strange to be related to Cloudflare.

#7

can I send you pm?
I can’t find pm function in this forum?

#8

ok so I found the info that /cdn-cgi/trace at the end of my domain shows cdn info for the current connection

and I see that colo=SIN

I’m connected to singapore cdn even though I connect from Australia

I want to solve this issue and get connected to right cdn near me

To achieve this, do I need argo or pro plan?

colo=Australia <===================== for this

#9

Sorry about the late reply…

Unfortunately PMs aren’t available. If you have problems with sharing the domain do not esitate to contact support.

To contact Cloudflare Customer Support, login & go to https://dash.cloudflare.com/?account=support and select get more help. Please give Support the complete details and link to your Community post. Here’s a bit of background on Cloudflare Support for reference:

https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200172476-How-do-I-report-a-bug-to-Cloudflare-

Argo won’t change the PoP you connect to. That can be due to 2 different factors:

  1. the ISP you use forces for their reasons your traffic to go there. Unfortunately Cloudflare can’t do anything about this, you need to contact yout ISP.
  2. Cloudflare for its own reasons (too much usage, pricing of bandwidth, etc.) can choose to remove some websites’ traffic from certain locations. This is reduced in probability the higher the plan you have, but it will never be eliminated (even Enterprise can be removed in case of issues with a specific PoP).
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#10

thanks matteo

colo=SYD when I open Cloudflare.com so it’s not the ISP issue I guess
I found that only Enterprise plan can achieve this at the moment. Is it true?

#11

It can still be, they are different IP ranges… Ideally you would need to find a different website on the same plan with a different range.

Business can as well basically always, Pro most of the time and Free sometimes.

#12

and another question here

is it ok to remove MX and TXT records in DNS settings?

#13

That you need to know yourself. Do you use email on your domain? Do you have TXT records in use for something? I can’t reply for you…

1 Like
#14

alright thank you

#15

Just to add some info: Cloudflare won’t normally cache your html document (which is responsible for TTFB), even with “cache everything” enabled. To achieve caching of HTML pages, you would have to either create a page rule with “Edge cache TTL” + “Cache everything”, OR add cache-control headers to your html documents … However, that means you will also need to deal with the fact that the Cloudflare will serve cached html files, even if you have updated the website.

That is why html-caching is disabled by default, and also why Cloudflare generally doesn’t improve first byte time for your website. It could in some cases (like yours) also increase the TTFB (time to first byte), because requests are routed from server->Cloudflare->visitor … In your case, if requests from Australia get routed to Singapore and then back to Australia, it will for sure create a higher value … Australia has a bit of an unusual internet infrastructure, and I personally had an Australian customer who moved his website to a Singapore server because it loaded faster.

Ultimately, Cloudflare shouldn’t be causing much higher TTFB. The difference between A and B in reports could be as small as 10ms. In webpagetest.org, you can check the actual TTFB for the page, and compare the results.

Argo might help slightly, but will not make a world of difference. Essentially, you can’t expect Cloudflare to improve TTFB, but keep in mind, TTFB is only one factor of many in terms of website performance.

1 Like
#16

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