High or Inconsistent Response Times

If your monitor is showing high or fluctuating response times, here are the common causes and solutions.

Network Latency

Response times include the full round-trip from Blimey's server to yours and back. Geographic distance between the monitoring server and your site adds latency.

What's normal: 50-300ms for same-region, 200-600ms for cross-continental.

Server Load

High response times often indicate your server is under heavy load:

Check CPU and memory usage on your server
Look for slow database queries
Review application logs for bottlenecks

DNS Resolution

Slow DNS can add significant time to each request. Consider:

Using a fast DNS provider (Cloudflare, Route 53)
Setting appropriate TTL values

SSL/TLS Handshake

HTTPS connections require a TLS handshake which adds time. This is normal and expected — the security benefits far outweigh the small latency cost.

Tips for Investigation

Use the Analytics page to compare response times across monitors
Look for patterns — are spikes at specific times of day?
Toggle individual monitors in the chart legend to focus on specific ones
Check if the issue correlates with deployments or traffic spikes