Choosing Test Destinations & Adding Custom Hosts
Destinations are the servers GlobeLatency measures. Pick a ready template, filter by category or region, search by name, or build your own list with Select all and Uncheck all. You can add any HTTPS URL as a custom destination; it stays in your browser, is kept apart from the shared list and is never saved in reports. A small static file gives the cleanest network measurement.
On this page
Quick answer: in the destination picker you can start from a template, narrow by category and region, search by name, tick or untick individual servers, use Select all or Uncheck all, and add your own URLs as custom destinations. The same selection is used by Test, the live map and Monitor, so you only choose once.
What is a destination?
A destination is a public server and a small address on it that GlobeLatency requests. Examples: a cloud provider's regional endpoint, a CDN edge, a gaming platform, a public DNS service or a popular website. The shared list is stored in the site database, so new destinations can be added centrally without changing the page.
Templates
A template is a named list of destinations. Selecting one ticks all its destinations at once. Templates are the best starting point:
- they give you a representative cross-section (near and far, different providers);
- you can reuse the same template for before and after comparisons;
- there is a default template, preselected for first-time visitors.
When you change the selection manually after choosing a template, the selection is now yours; the template is just a shortcut.
Categories and regions
Use filters to focus the list. Categories group by kind of service (for example cloud, CDN, gaming, DNS, websites). Regions group by geography. Combine them: a gamer in Europe might filter to the gaming category and tick European servers only. Filters change what is visible; the counter always shows the total selected.
Search
Type part of a name to find a server fast. Search works across all categories, which is handy when you know the exact service you want to check.
Select all and Uncheck all
Select all ticks every destination currently available. Uncheck all clears the whole selection, so you can build a precise custom list without un-ticking items one by one. A test needs at least one selected destination, so choose some before pressing Start.
How many destinations should I choose?
| Goal | Suggested selection |
|---|---|
| Quick health check | The default template (about 10 to 20 destinations), 3 passes |
| Gaming | Game servers and cloud regions near you, 5 to 10 passes |
| Website or API | Your own host plus a few CDN and cloud references |
| Spotting a local problem | A mix of near and far destinations, so you can tell local from remote causes |
| Long-term monitoring | 10 to 30 destinations you depend on |
More destinations give a broader picture but take longer in Test and send more requests in the live modes. Up to three destinations are measured at the same time in a Test.
Custom destinations
Custom destinations let you measure anything reachable over HTTPS: your website, your office VPN gateway page, a game server's status page, a partner API.
How to add one
- Open the custom destinations area of the picker.
- Enter a name (optional) and the URL or hostname.
- Add it. It appears in a separate "My destinations" group and is selected.
What stays separate
- Custom entries live in your browser local storage only.
- They never mix with the shared list and cannot be seen by other visitors.
- They are excluded from the saved report and from the world statistics.
- You can remove them any time; "Uncheck all" does not delete them, it only deselects.
Which URL to use
| URL type | What the number represents |
|---|---|
| Small static file (favicon, tiny image, robots.txt) | Mostly network latency (DNS, TCP, TLS and one round trip) |
| Dedicated health-check endpoint | Network plus a very small amount of server work |
| Full HTML page | Network plus the time to generate the page; closer to TTFB |
| Heavy dynamic API call | Network plus application and database time |
For the difference between network latency and server time, see TTFB and web performance and latency for websites and APIs.
Rules and gotchas
- Use https. Browsers block http requests made from an https page (mixed content), which shows as No reply.
- No status codes. A 404 or 500 still gives a timing; only a connection failure gives No reply. See how GlobeLatency measures.
- Certificates must be valid. Expired or mismatched certificates make the browser refuse the connection.
- Private addresses may not work. An internal hostname is reachable only if your own device can reach it; the request is made from your browser, not from our server.
- Be polite. The live modes send a request every few seconds; do not point 120 second-interval checks at servers you do not own with aggressive settings.
Worked example: comparing hosting providers for your site
You have two staging servers, one in Frankfurt and one in Virginia. Add https://frankfurt.example.com/favicon.ico and https://virginia.example.com/favicon.ico, Uncheck all, tick only these two plus two reference destinations in Europe and the US, and run 10 passes. If Frankfurt averages 32 ms and Virginia 128 ms from your office, that 96 ms gap is network distance and routing, and it will be added to every request round trip your users make. Add the numbers of your users' locations too, by asking colleagues to run the same list.
Common mistakes and myths
- Selecting only far servers and concluding the connection is bad. Include near servers too.
- Using a slow, heavy page as the custom URL and blaming the network.
- Expecting custom hosts in a shared report. They are not stored.
- Using http:// and getting No reply.
What to do next
Run the test from Running a test, watch your selection live on the map, or read testing CDN performance to choose destinations that measure a CDN fairly.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add my own website to the test?
Open the custom destinations section, enter the URL or hostname, and add it. It is selected together with the shared destinations and measured in the same way. Use https addresses, because browsers block plain http requests from an https page.
Are my custom destinations saved on your server?
No. They are stored only in your browser local storage. They appear in on-screen results and in the live map and monitor, but they are not part of saved reports and do not contribute to the world statistics.
Which URL should I use for my own server?
A small static file such as /favicon.ico or a tiny health-check file measures network latency best. A full dynamic page also includes the time your server needs to generate it, which is useful for application speed but not a pure network number.
Why does my custom destination show no world average?
World averages exist only for the shared destinations that many visitors measure. A custom destination is measured only by you, so there is nothing to compare with. The tile uses fixed bands instead.
Why do I get No reply for my own site?
Common reasons are an http address on an https page, a firewall or security rule blocking the request, a TLS certificate problem, a wrong hostname, or a server that is down. Open the address directly in the browser to check.