Latency is affected by many things. Best method for testing latency is to ping while no downloading or streaming etc is happening to a destination of choice. Not all sites or servers will return a ping request as part of an anti DDos attack configuration.
I test my latency online by simply pinging
www.google.com such as
Ping
www.google.comin which i get
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Users\Dave>ping www.google.com
Pinging www.google.com [74.125.226.179] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.226.179: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.226.179: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.226.179: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.226.179: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=53
Ping statistics for 74.125.226.179:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 42ms, Maximum = 43ms, Average = 42ms
C:\Users\Dave>
Getting latency off of a website out there that tests latency I dont feel is the best method. There may be many hops between you and that website. If you run a trace route you can see all the hops in between and where the most latency is occurring.
C:\Users\Dave>tracert www.google.com
Tracing route to www.google.com [74.125.226.179]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms RouterName [192.168.150.1]
2 11 ms 7 ms 8 ms 96.120.70.1
3 10 ms 12 ms 10 ms ge-3-39-ur01.danbury.ct.hartford.comcast.net [68
.87.181.209]
4 13 ms 10 ms 11 ms te-5-1-ur02.woburn.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.87.
145.182]
5 22 ms 24 ms 22 ms be-70-ar01.needham.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.85.
69.177]
6 49 ms 47 ms 45 ms be-7015-cr02.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68.86
.90.217]
7 57 ms 45 ms 44 ms hu-0-11-0-0-pe03.111eighthave.ny.ibone.comcast.n
et [68.86.83.98]
8 58 ms 58 ms 62 ms as15169-2-c.111eighthave.ny.ibone.comcast.net [2
3.30.206.126]
9 47 ms 43 ms 43 ms 216.239.50.108
10 46 ms 43 ms 44 ms 209.85.245.183
11 44 ms 41 ms 46 ms lga15s45-in-f19.1e100.net [74.125.226.179]
Trace complete.
C:\Users\Dave>
If you have a local issue with latency you can find that by pinging your local router such as mine is at 192.168.150.1 in which I perform the following
C:\Users\Dave>ping 192.168.150.1
Pinging 192.168.150.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.150.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.150.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.150.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.150.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.150.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
C:\Users\Dave>
Your local latency should be very very little just like I have. If you have wifi with weak signal or neighbors on the same channel of wifi you can end up with radio competition and router and computer work to pick what packets are your traffic from the noise and will add latency. If this is the problem reconfigure the radio of the router or access point to a channel not used by neighbors or other wireless devices and try that. If you have a weak wifi signal you also will get high latency as for packets have to be retransmitted that failed to transmit etc and this adds delays in communication.
Hope this helps
