First Byte Time “FBT” findings and research results

[clubberz]

(01-17-2016 09:25 AM)Anton Chigurh Wrote:  

(09-29-2015 12:57 AM)Gnaser Wrote:  It seems like Anton is suggesting that reducing bloat could improve TTFB

And happily, I was finally able to prove this. It's a fact.

(01-17-2016 09:25 AM)Anton Chigurh Wrote:  More requests = more bloat = longer FBT.

Gnaser is correct. Frontend bloat such as image size or javascript doesn't affect the TTFB one bit. There is no question about this.

It's all about the backend processing when it comes to the TTFB. You can't see that on the webpagetest results because it happens on the server side before the file gets sent to the browser. Whether an image is 5mb or 1mb, or if the page contains 1000s of requests it won't affect the TTFB. What matters is how that page is put together in the backend code before it gets sent to the browser, which you cannot see on webpagetest.

The decrease in the TTFB you noticed by removing plugins would be related to the decrease in PHP and database calls not the amount of requests.