What is a CDN and how to set it up

In order to keep a user on the site and lead them to the target action, we use various optimization methods: eye-catching design, high qualified and useful content, SEO-optimisation, etc. However, quite often we forget about details which eventually play a great role in the site running, influence its ranking and visits.

Website loading speed affects its positions in the list of searching results and influences users' behavior which is also important for ranking and conversion rates. Let's talk about page files loading speed and the CDN — one of the effective ways of the site optimization.

Content Delivery Network is a system which helps to increase the files loading speed on the website. It is done due to several servers located at great distances from each other.

CDN acts as a bridge: it connects all the servers into the single net and provides faster content loading. Sometimes it is possible to decrease users' waiting time for 5-6 seconds.

Obviously, nobody enjoys waiting. We don't like staying in a line, waiting for a bus or holding the line until we are connected with somebody. Approximately the same feel users while looking at the screen for 10-15 seconds and expecting for a miracle. However, according to the stats, even 7-10 of waiting are too much. As a result, people simply run out of patience, leave the site, and we lose potential buyers or readers.

The longer images, text, files and other page elements load, the less interest and patience users have. That's why the content loading speed is the most influential factor which positively affects users behavior and the site's reputation in general.

The important role is played by a distance between a server and the user. The longer it is, the more time will be spent until all the data appears on the screen. CDN helps to use and connect several servers which are located to the users as closely as it is possible. This cuts waiting time helps to speed up the page loading for all the users regardless of their locations.

Sites that have a lot of large files definitely need to use the content delivery network. CDN considerably helps to cut the loading time and prevents various data load fails.

Furthermore, for multilingual sites using CDN is strongly advised. Content of such sites is usually translated into at least two languages. Consequently, the server has to load at least two times more info. Users of such sites are scattered worldwide, and most of them are located quite far from the main server.

Due to the CDN, we can create a whole chain of additional servers which are located as close as it is possible to every user which provides more sustainable and quick data delivery and makes the resource accessible for a greater amount of users.

One of the greatest CND upsides is that it positively influences ranking. Search engines track the user's actions and behavior on the site.

On this basis, the site is considered to be useful for visitors or not. The faster the content loads, the less chance the user will leave the resource. Moreover, search engines estimate the general site's speed themselves.

Besides increasing the files loading speed, the content delivery network also has other advantages:

Use of the CDN helps to cut wastes on the hosting optimization. Of course, you will have to spend some money to integrate, adjust the CDN and its service. However, it is still worth for money and constant development of the hosting is rather more expensive and problematic.

There is a great deal of CDN providers. Each of them offers its price for the CDN, term of use and quality of the service. Moreover, choosing the right provider depends on plenty of individual factors and site features. Here are the most common of them:

It's important to choose the proper CDN, consider servers' location as close to users as it is possible. We advise the needed servers to be chosen based on the analysis of your site metrics. This will show which region includes the vast majority of users. Also, site specificities and your target audience should be considered.

All these nuances have to be taken into account before paying. Moreover, it would be great to know whether the company signs contracts with clients and what are the terms of termination in case if you, for instance, decided to change the provider.

According to Hostings.info rating, the most popular CND providers are InterServer.net in the USA and 1&1 IOINOS.com in Europe. Both of them have servers located all over the world.

There are tens of various ratings and providers overviews on the Internet. Site owner just has to determine which exactly files are to be optimized and direct them to the system.

Let's have a look at several popular CDN providers.

This is a relatively young company which works only six years. However, for this time, it managed to base its servers worldwide and powered more than 45 thousand websites. CDN77 has more than 35 data centers located all over the world.

Price for the CDN depends on terabytes needed. There are four monthly plans starting from 6 TB and ending with 100 TB per month. Also, there is another pricing type which considers payments for the amount of the used traffic and severs chosen.

One of the world's largest CDN hosting. The company was established in the USA more than 14 years ago. They count nearly 155 servers systems worldwide. Most of them are located in Europe, the US and Asia.

There are four pricing plans on the site. Furthermore, one of them is free. It is suitable for little websites, blogs, etc. The minimum domain service price is 20 USD per month. In addition, the company offers plenty of other useful tools for site optimization and protection.

The company works since 2012. There are eight tariff plans on the site, offering clients absolutely different terms of use. The minimum price is 0.04 USD per GB. All the plans consider DDoS protection, CDN storage, CDN SSL and many other features.

Let's consider how to set up CDN to the site from the example of CloudFlare. All the platforms have approximately the same registration and adjustment procedures. So, the following instructions can be considered to be universal.

CloudFlare will update your domain within 24 hours. In order to connect the site to the CDN, you need to replace the current domain with a new one.

You can speed up the whole site, but it will be more expensive than to do the same but with a part of it. It is much better to identify the most "heavy" files which slow down page loading. Also, it's worth to optimize only those elements which are almost never changed, such as images, javascript, CSS.

Content delivery networks work automatically, so entering the address of an existing server in settings is pretty enough to connect the site.

To connect the CDN to some particular page elements, you have to encode new static elements' addresses (images, javascript, etc.). To do this, you need to replace the current files path with the one connected to the CDN.

For example, here is a certain file code:

Add this very address to the code in the CDN server and the result is:

A site protocol plays an important role. If the site is available only with HTTPS protocol, then it also has to be encoded:

If there is a standard protocol on the site, the code also may not include it:

Do the same with every particularly taken file. After that, it is better to check how the site works. Refresh the pages, follow some links, view animated elements if there are such. The site has to work as earlier. The page loading speed won't change considerably and, most likely, you even won't see the difference as the CDN system is aimed at optimizing distanced from the main server processes.

If you see that after the refreshing, site works incorrectly, e.g. images don't appear or something like that, most probably you have mistaken while encoding. This may be an odd dot, gap or vice versa their absence. Check the code and correct the mistake.

If you need to speed up site loading for users from the far regions, content delivery network (CDN) is a great solution.

Don't expect that after the CDN is integrated, the site loading will become 2-3 times faster. Everything depends on the size of the loading files, quality of the CDN's work in general, etc.

Increasing loading speed for 1-2 second is a great result. Sometimes, it happens that a 0.5-second difference positively influences customers behavior and their attitude to the content.