Is it worth switching to a dedictated server?

will it lead to an increase in conversions?

[derekwong28]

I am using shared hosting at the moment for our e-commerce sites. They receive around 2,000 visitors a day and use 15GB bandwidth per month. I wonder whether switching to a fully managed dedicated server will lead to an increase in conversion rate? Also, would it lead to a saving in clerical time as 3 persons may access the admin section of our shopping cart at the same time. What sort of specifications would be sufficient for our needs?

Also, I have a network of content sites which is getting up to 10,000 visitors a day and uses over 200GB bandwidth a month. Would hosting them in the same server as our e-commerce sites make things worse for our e-com sites? Should they be hosted elsewhere leaving the e-com sites to one server?

Any suggestions you can give would be welcome

Derek

[bose]

I wonder whether switching to a fully managed dedicated server will lead to an increase in conversion rate?

Derek,

Switching to a dedicated server in itself may not have a direct impact on your conversion rate.

If your current setup limits you in some way (access to server-level config files, access to log files, etc.) then getting a dedicated server may be helpful in that regard.

The server specifications would largely depend on your site's current and projected requirements, and more importantly on any issues that you may be currently having with your current setup.

As far as hosting of content and e-commerce sites on a single server goes, it should be alright if your new server has enough of horse power. You may want to look into any possible impact on your interlinking, etc.

[psage]

You need monitoring.

By monitoring your site (including images, pages and the shopping cart) from multiple locations to see how fast it loads at different times of day, you will be able to determine whether you have a speed issue.

Customers are generally VERY sensitive to speed -- many will give up if a page is loading slowly. So it's important to know how your pages are performing.

[edited by: rogerd at 1:11 pm (utc) on Oct. 29, 2004]
[edit reason] No URLs, please... [/edit]

[blaze]

Hey Derek,

I switched to a dedicated server and I got a significantly large amount of increased conversions.

Higher performance website, one that loads faster, will convert much better.

Eg, something that is 1 second versus .5 seconds will convert better. Check out ev1servers, they have some very good deals.

[duckhunter]

as 3 persons may access the admin section of our shopping cart

Why only 3 with 2000+ accessing the content? Does the Admin section slow down the rest of the site? If so, you might need to review the database queries/connections/etc. I have always been able to speed things up by managing indexes and cleaning up code into more streamlined database access methods. Why only 3? What happens if you have 5 in the admin area?

[derekwong28]

Hi, thanks for your replies so far. I am not worried about the admin slowing down the website. I am worried about the website slowing down our admin work if it is shared with other websites and processes.

I wonder is there anybody else who has seen an increase in conversion rates?

[duckhunter]

As psage said, Customers are VERY sensitive to speed. If your pages are taking 5+ seconds to load then you very well may see in increase in conversion IF the problem lies in the CPU/Utilization of the existing server. If you have database and code issues that aren't scaling, then a dedicated server may not help as much as you would hope.

What are the utilization levels of the existing box? CPU averages, total memory, available memory, etc.?

Another option from a dedicated box is: Our host offers a server 'farm' which is 3 shared boxes behind a load balancer. We have a single database server and 3 web boxes. Definitely helps with reliability and speed. We moved there for reliability/failover needs as our old shared server was fast, just a single point of failure.