The WordPress website ediva.gr, a popular Greek news site, approached our company with the main goal of improving its performance, as it had slow loading times that affected its SEO and the experience of its readers. Without making any development changes to the website, we achieved an impressive improvement in Web Vitals speed. This case study shows the results with real data from Google.
Page speed is the key to the success of any website. Google treats performance as a main ranking criterion in organic results (SEO). This approach is correct, as performance is directly linked to user satisfaction. A fast website encourages visitors to stay longer, interact, and explore more pages. For news websites, this means greater readability, reader loyalty, and ultimately higher revenue.
In the case of ediva.gr, we achieved a significant improvement in loading times thanks to the multi-level optimizations we implement in our hosting environment.
Speed Improvement and Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of important metrics that Google uses to evaluate the performance of a website for visitors. Web Vitals include, among other things, server response time, content display time to the user, and content stability during loading. They are currently the de facto method for objectively measuring website speed and apply to all pages of the website (not just the home page or other individual pages).
The most reliable and realistic way to measure a website’s speed is through records of actual user visits to the site (Real User Metrics). Google collects such data by sampling anonymous data from real visitors, both from mobile and desktop devices. This data is available through the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) in Google Looker Studio.
Below we show the improvement we achieved after transferring the website to our infrastructure, based on actual user measurements during their visits to the website. This data was collected by CrUX and includes all website pages and devices.
The website was transferred to our infrastructure in February 2025, and since then, there has been a significant improvement in web vitals, as shown in the relevant graphs below. Specifically, we analyze three important web vitals indicators that clearly relate to its speed (TTFB, FCP, LCP).
Results Summary
| Core Web Vitals Indicator | Before (January 2025) | After (April 2025) | Improvement |
| TTFB (green) | ~45% of visits | ~85% of visits | +89% |
| FCP (green) | ~40% of visits | ~85% of visits | +112% |
| LCP (green) | ~48% of visits | ~91% of visits | +90% |
The following graphs show the measurements of each indicator in more detail, as recorded by Google.
Time to First Byte (TTFB) Improvement
The TTFB (Time to First Byte) indicator measures the server’s response time, specifically the time it takes for the server to send the first data to the browser (the first byte). It is the most representative speed indicator for hosting, as it measures how quickly the hosting responds.
Google specifies that this time must be less than 0.8 seconds for the server response to be considered fast (green color in the graphs). At the same time, a server response time (TTFB) of more than 1.8 seconds is considered problematic (red color in the graphs).
The improvement is shown below, from March onwards (website came to our infrastructure in February), achieving a “green” TTFB in ~85% of visits. Fast TTFB is critical as all other web vitals metrics depend on it. Finally, it is worth noting the significant reduction in “red” across all visits.
FCP (First Contentful Paint) Improvement
First Contentful Paint (FCP) is the time it takes for the first visible content element to appear on the screen and plays an important role in the loading experience and visitor retention on a website.
Google recommends that the time it takes for the first content to appear (FCP) be less than 1.8 seconds (green color in the graphs) in order to maximize the time visitors stay on the website. Similarly, it considers a delay of content display for more than 3 seconds (red color in the graphs) to be problematic, as it often causes visitor dissatisfaction and increases the likelihood of them leaving the website.
Below you can see the impressive improvement in FCP for website visitors, where “green” exceeded ~85%, while “red” fell below ~4% of total visits.
LCP Improvement (Largest Contentful Paint)
The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric measures the time it takes for the largest visible content element to appear on the screen. It is an important metric as it reflects the speed at which a large portion of the content is displayed to the visitor.
Google considers LCP to be fast when the LCP time is less than 2.5 seconds (green color in the charts). An LCP load time of more than 4 seconds (red color in the charts) is considered problematic for the user experience.
Ediva.gr, hosted on our infrastructure, achieved a “green” LCP in ~91% of visits, while at the same time “red” visits decreased dramatically. Fast LCP loading contributes to a good first impression for the visitors.
Fast Website with Multi-Level Optimizations
The choice of hosting provider is one of the most critical factors for the page speed of a website. In the case of ediva.gr, we offered our optimized managed hosting for WordPress on a Cloud dedicated server. At the same time, we implemented a number of optimizations specific to this website in order to achieve the effective improvement in performance recorded by Google. The following actions were taken:
- Utilization of a 100% nginx web server with performance optimizations in all components of the operating system
- Utilization of powerful, latest-generation hardware with fast CPUs, NVMe Data Center Edition disks, and high-speed network
- Implementation of special database optimizations for WordPress and specifically for the workload of ediva.gr
- Utilization of advanced caching techniques
- Implementation of numerous configurations in the customer’s Cloudflare account
- Securing and monitoring the hosting environment as well as providing extra protection against attacks
Website Performance and Business Benefits
The increase in the page speed of the WordPress website ediva.gr is impressive and documented, as shown by Google’s records. Improving speed and overall performance does not necessarily require radical changes or large investments.
It should be noted that no code changes were made to the website, just the hosting environment. The speed improvement was immediate after the migration of ediva.gr to our infrastructure. Similar impressive results are recorded on a number of websites that choose our hosting services.
A business with a high-performance website can achieve positive results, such as:
- Increased user retention: Reducing the loading time of a website significantly helps improve the overall user experience and retention on the website. This leads to increased user satisfaction, enhanced interaction with content, and the likelihood that visitors return in the future.
- Improved Google Ranking / SEO: Faster loading leads to better Core Web Vitals, improving the website’s ranking in organic results and increasing traffic through search engines.
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