Server locations

See where your site's servers are, and what that means for visitors far away from them.

What are server locations?

Server locations are the places the servers behind your domain appear to be. DomainDash works them out from your site's DNS records and plots them on a world map. You don't need to give us hosting access or set anything up.

You'll find this map in two places. On the site overview (and the uptime page) it's the Global reach card, where it also marks the locations DomainDash checks your site from. On the Domain routing page it appears as the Server locations map, above the DNS records. Both update whenever we run a DNS check. See DNS health for the rest of the Domain routing page.

What the map shows

The map plots server pins: where the IPs behind your domain appear to be. If a site has more than one server in the same city, they're grouped into a single pin; hover it to see how many. Above the map, a short summary tells you how many IPs were found and across how many countries or cities. On the Global reach view you'll also see markers for the locations DomainDash checks from.

Two things to know about the pins:

• They're approximate. We estimate server locations from public IP address data. That's accurate to the country and city, but we can't pinpoint the data centre or building.
• Behind a CDN, the pins show the CDN. When your site is behind something like Cloudflare, Fastly, or CloudFront, the pins show the CDN's edge nodes, and the origin server behind them doesn't appear. This is usually a good sign: visitors in that area are getting a cached copy close to home.

The map shows where your servers are. To measure how your site performs from different places, use check locations, which record response time from each location.

Why server location matters

Data moves along undersea fibre cables at roughly the speed of light, and long distances still add a delay you can measure.

A request from London to a server in Sydney has to travel about 17,000 km each way. That's around a 270ms round trip for the wire alone, before your server has done any work. Add the usual overheads (connecting, securing the connection, your server preparing the response), and a distant visitor waits longer than a local one.

Visitor in	Server in	Minimum round trip
London	London	~10ms
London	New York	~75ms
London	Sydney	~270ms

What your map is telling you

There are four common patterns.

One pin, close to your customers

Most of your visitors are near your server and get quick responses. No change needed.

One pin, a long way from your customers

Your server is far from where your visitors are. They're probably noticing the wait, especially on slower connections or mobile networks.

Multiple pins across different parts of the world

You're using multiple servers, or a CDN, to serve your site from several places at once. Your site is likely already set up for global reach.

The pins show a CDN edge

The pins are your CDN's nodes, and your origin server sits behind them. That's usually a good sign: visitors in those areas are getting a cached copy close to home.

How to improve your global reach

If the map shows some of your visitors are a long way from your server, start by measuring, then consider a CDN.

Measure from more places

First find out whether the distance is causing a problem. On a paid plan, a site can check from a second location. Open the site's settings, go to the Uptime tab, and under Where to check from set the Secondary field to somewhere close to your customers. Then compare the two response times. Check locations covers adding a location and reading the results.

Put your content closer with a CDN

A content delivery network (CDN) stores copies of your site on servers around the world. When someone visits your site, the nearest CDN node answers in place of your origin server, which shortens the wait for distant visitors.

Popular CDNs include Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS CloudFront, and Bunny.net. Most of them have a generous free tier.

Frequently asked questions

How does DomainDash know where my servers are?

DomainDash works it out from your site's DNS records: the IP addresses your domain resolves to. Public IP address databases map those addresses to a country and city. You don't need to give DomainDash hosting access or configure anything, and the map updates whenever we run a DNS check.

Why does the map show my CDN location instead of my origin?

When your site is behind a CDN like Cloudflare, Fastly, or AWS CloudFront, your domain's IP addresses belong to the CDN's edge nodes, and those are what visitors connect to. DomainDash shows them, so the origin server behind the CDN doesn't appear. This is normally a good sign: your content is being served from somewhere close to your visitors.

How accurate is the server location?

Locations are accurate to the country and city. DomainDash can't pinpoint the data centre or building, because the public IP-geolocation databases it uses map IP ranges to a city.

Can I add more server locations?

DomainDash shows whatever your DNS records point to. To get more global coverage, add a CDN (Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS CloudFront, Bunny.net). Most have generous free tiers. The CDN's edge nodes will then appear on the map automatically.

Related

• DNS health for the Domain routing page the map lives on
• Check locations for comparing performance between two locations
• Uptime checks for how uptime checks work in general
• How incidents work for what happens when a check fails