Don’t allow latency to impact your business. Best practices for a fast and seamless UX

In recent years, UX has become a critical factor in the success of web applications, online services, and software products. No matter how valuable a brand’s products are, if the website and application are slow, hard to use, or unintuitive, users will not hesitate to abandon them. One of the key elements affecting UX is latency—the delay between the user’s action and the system’s response.

For example, in 2025, Google recommends an optimal page load time of under 2 seconds to ensure a good user experience (UX), especially for eCommerce websites. Otherwise, high latency can lead to frustrating experiences, including slow website loading, lag in online gaming, delayed financial transactions, and unresponsive enterprise applications.

To avoid such experiences, M247 offers its clients a global network with over 53 Points of Presence (POP), connected via high-performance communication backbones ranging from 10 to 100 Gbps. This allows our clients to run their applications very close to end users, minimizing the negative impact of latency.

Opt for M247 Dedicated Server Solutions and run your applications from one of the 53 points of presence in our global network. We help you prioritize low-latency solutions, ensuring a competitive advantage, better engagement, and higher user satisfaction. Contact us at [email protected]

Let’s consider the following scenarios:

• A customer trying to complete an online purchase abandons their cart due to slow page loads.
• A gamer experiences lag, causing delays in their actions, and leading to poor gameplay performance.
• A financial analyst struggles with delayed data processing, making it difficult to execute timely decisions.

These examples illustrate how latency directly impacts user satisfaction, productivity, and business revenue. In this article, we will explore latency, its types, how to measure performance using the RAIL model, and best practices to minimize it.

What is latency?

Latency refers to the time it takes for data to travel from the source to its destination and back. It affects the speed and responsiveness of applications, websites, and digital services. High latency results in noticeable delays that degrade user experience.

Latency can be categorized into different types:

1. Network Latency: the time taken for data to travel between the user’s device and the server. It depends on network congestion, distance, and routing inefficiencies.
2. Application Latency: the delay caused by inefficient application logic, slow database queries, or poor software optimization.
3. Server Latency: the time taken for the server to process requests, retrieve data, and respond. It is affected by server performance, workload distribution, and backend efficiency.

Understanding these types of latency is crucial for identifying bottlenecks and optimizing overall system performance.

How to measure performance: the RAIL model

A structured approach to measuring and improving performance is the RAIL (Response, Animation, Idle, Load) model, developed by Google. This model provides guidelines for ensuring a smooth user experience by focusing on four key aspects:

1. Response: the system should respond to user interactions within 100ms to maintain a seamless experience.
2. Animation: visual updates, such as scrolling and animations, should run at 60 frames per second (FPS) to avoid janky motion.
3. Idle: background processes should be executed efficiently during idle time without interrupting user interactions.
4. Load: pages and applications should load within 1 second for optimal user retention.

By applying the RAIL model, developers can pinpoint areas where latency negatively affects UX and take targeted actions to optimize performance.

Best measures to reduce latency

Reducing latency requires a combination of strategic infrastructure choices, software optimizations, and network improvements. Below are the most effective measures:

1. Deploy applications closer to users

On one hand, placing applications in data centers geographically closer to end users reduces the physical distance that data needs to travel, thus lowering network latency.

M247’s activity is a perfect example of this scenario. In the first two month of 2025, we ?already expanded our global network with three new points of presence in Helsinki, Atlanta, and Chicago, following significant investments in cutting-edge technology – servers, storage, networking, and security. These new locations enable the delivery of competitive colocation and cloud services at a global level. While the Helsinki POP will connect Europe with the Baltic countries and the CIS region, We have ambitious plans to open five more POPs in key locations across North America (Boston and Vancouver), Africa (Johannesburg), Asia (Taipei), and Europe (Marseille), all scheduled to become operational within the next two years.

As of February 2025, M247 Europe operates 53 points of presence in 34 major cities across 28 countries on all continents, interconnected through ultra-fast communication backbones. Additionally, the company owns two modern data centers in Romania, further strengthening its position as a leader in the local market.

On the other hand, using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and Edge Computing can further optimize performance by caching content near users and processing requests at the edge of the network.

2. Optimize Network Infrastructure

A well-optimized network infrastructure ensures minimal data transfer delays. Some key techniques include:

• Using fast and reliable ISPs with low-latency connections.
• Implementing HTTP/3 and QUIC protocols, which reduce handshake delays and improve data transmission.
• Reducing DNS lookup times using efficient DNS services such as Google DNS or Cloudflare DNS.
• Minimizing hops in the network path by leveraging direct peering agreements and optimized routing.

3. Implement Auto Load Balancing for workloads

Load balancing distributes incoming requests across multiple servers to prevent bottlenecks and ensure high availability. Techniques such as:

• Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) to route traffic to the nearest available server.
• Application Load Balancers (ALB) to optimize request distribution within an application.
• Adaptive load balancing algorithms that dynamically allocate resources based on demand.

4. Optimize application performance

Applications should be designed and optimized to reduce latency and improve responsiveness. Effective strategies include:

• Minimizing database query response times by indexing, caching, and using efficient database queries.
• Implementing asynchronous processing to avoid blocking user interactions.
• Reducing third-party dependencies that introduce additional network delays.
• Optimizing front-end performance with techniques like lazy loading, code splitting, and image compression.

5. Leverage Caching Mechanisms

Caching reduces redundant processing and speeds up response times by storing frequently accessed data in memory. Caching techniques include:

• Browser caching to store static assets locally on users’ devices.
• Server-side caching using tools like Redis or Memcached to reduce database lookups.
• Edge caching via CDNs to serve content from locations closer to users.

6. Improve API efficiency

APIs play a crucial role in application performance. To minimize latency in API calls:

• Use GraphQL instead of REST to reduce over-fetching of data.
• Implement API gateways to optimize request handling.
• Enable HTTP/2 multiplexing to send multiple requests over a single connection.
• Reduce payload sizes by compressing data and removing unnecessary fields.

7. Monitor and optimize in real-time

Continuous monitoring allows organizations to identify and address latency issues proactively. Key monitoring strategies include:

• Using performance analytics tools like Google Lighthouse, New Relic, and Datadog.
• Setting up real-time alerts for latency spikes.
• Conducting regular performance audits to assess and optimize system efficiency.

M247 helps you to reduce latency

?As the level of digitalization among organizations and users increases, they expect fast and seamless interactions. Reducing latency is no longer just a technical challenge but a business necessity, as high latency leads to customer dissatisfaction and missed business opportunities. Understanding the different types of latency – network, application, and server – is essential for diagnosing performance issues. By utilizing the RAIL model for performance measurement and implementing best practices such as running applications closer to users, optimizing network infrastructure, using load balancing, and improving application efficiency, companies can effectively reduce latency and enhance the user experience.

Opt for M247 Dedicated Server Solutions and run your applications from one of the 53 points of presence in our global network. We help you prioritize low-latency solutions, ensuring a competitive advantage, better engagement, and higher user satisfaction. Contact us at [email protected]