P0Issue #75

Round Trip Time (RTT)

❓ What does it mean?

❓ What is RTT? Round Trip Time (RTT) measures how long it takes for a browser to send a request to the server and receive the first byte of a response back. It’s basically the network latency between the client and server. High RTT = slower loading, which directly affects Time to First Byte (TTFB), LCP, and overall SEO performance.

✅ How to Fix It

❌ Example of Poor RTT A user in India visits a website hosted only in the US. Browser request travels thousands of kilometers → RTT = 300ms. Since each CSS/JS/image may require multiple RTTs, the total page load time increases → page takes 6s to load. Result: Poor Core Web Vitals, higher bounce rate, and negative SEO impact.

❌ Bad Example

✅ Example of Good RTT The same site uses a Content Delivery Network (CDN) with an edge server in Mumbai. Request only travels locally → RTT = 40ms. Page now loads in 2.5s. Result: Faster loading, better UX, and improved SEO rankings.

✅ Good Example

🛠 How to Improve RTT Use a CDN – Serve static assets from servers closer to the user. Enable HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 (QUIC) – Reduces the number of RTTs required for multiple requests. Keep Connections Alive (Keep-Alive header) – Avoids new handshakes for each request. Optimize DNS Lookup Time – Use faster DNS providers and reduce redirects. Reduce Resource Requests – Minify CSS/JS, combine files, and preload critical resources.

⚡ Result

📈 SEO & UX Impact Lower RTT = faster TTFB → directly improves Core Web Vitals. Better crawl efficiency: Googlebot fetches pages faster with lower latency. Improved user engagement and conversions due to faster page load times.