Content Delivery Network : CDN | CDN for WordPress
What is a CDN?
A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) refers to a geographically distributed group of servers which work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content. The goal is to provide high availability and high performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end-users. CDNs serve a large portion of the Internet content today, including web objects (text, graphics and scripts), downloadable objects (media files, software, documents), applications (e-commerce, portals), live streaming media, on-demand streaming media, and social media sites. A CDN allows for the quick transfer of assets needed for loading Internet content including HTML pages, javascript files, stylesheets, images, and videos. The popularity of CDN services continues to grow, and today the majority of web traffic is served through CDNs, including traffic from major sites like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon.
CDNs are a layer in the internet ecosystem. Content owners such as media companies and e-commerce vendors pay CDN operators to deliver their content to their end users. In turn, a CDN pays ISPs, carriers, and network operators for hosting its servers in their data centers.
CDN vendors may cross over into other industries like security, with DDoS protection and web application firewalls (WAF), and WAN optimization.
Is a CDN the same as a web host?
While a CDN does not host content and can’t replace the need for proper web hosting, it does help cache content at the network edge, which improves website performance. Many websites struggle to have their performance needs met by traditional hosting services, which is why they opt for CDNs. By utilizing caching to reduce hosting bandwidth, helping to prevent interruptions in service, and improving security, CDNs are a popular choice to relieve some of the major pain points that come with traditional web hosting.
What are the benefits of using a CDN?
Although the benefits of using a CDN vary depending on the size and needs of an Internet property, the primary benefits for most users can be broken down into 4 different components:
- Improving website load times – By distributing content closer to website visitors by using a nearby CDN server (among other optimizations), visitors experience faster page loading times. As visitors are more inclined to click away from a slow-loading site, a CDN can reduce bounce rates and increase the amount of time that people spend on the site. In other words, a faster a website means more visitors will stay and stick around longer.
- Reducing bandwidth costs – Bandwidth consumption costs for website hosting is a primary expense for websites. Through caching and other optimizations, CDNs are able to reduce the amount of data an origin server must provide, thus reducing hosting costs for website owners.
- Increasing content availability and redundancy – Large amounts of traffic or hardware failures can interrupt normal website function. Thanks to their distributed nature, a CDN can handle more traffic and withstand hardware failure better than many origin servers.
- Improving website security – A CDN may improve security by providing DDoS mitigation, improvements to security certificates, and other optimizations.
How does a CDN work?
At its core, a CDN is a network of servers linked together with the goal of delivering content as quickly, cheaply, reliably, and securely as possible. In order to improve speed and connectivity, a CDN will place servers at the exchange points between different networks. These Internet exchange points (IXPs) are the primary locations where different Internet providers connect in order to provide each other access to traffic originating on their different networks. By having a connection to these high speed and highly interconnected locations, a CDN provider is able to reduce costs and transit times in high speed data delivery.
Best CDN For WordPress Websites
How CDN speeds up WordPress?
Generally, your WordPress hosting company serves your website from a single location. All visitors access the same server. If you have a high traffic, then all those user requests will slow down your website. During peak traffic hours, it can even crash the server which will make your site temporarily unavailable.
CDN caches your server’s static resources like CSS, JS, and images. When any user requests your website, all static resources are served through CDN servers. This reduces the load on your origin server and makes it faster and more efficient.
Static content is served through a network of servers located in different geographical locations around the globe. Each user request is handled by a server closest to the user’s location. This reduces the page load speed, and your website becomes noticeably faster for all users.
CDN for WordPress
CloudFlare
Cloudflare has built an expansive network of global data centers that cache static content closer to users. Caching frequently accessed files on Cloudflare’s network reduces the distance content needs to travel to get to the user and minimizes the impact of high latency on web page load times. Cloudflare’s network is API first, allowing customers to easily automate workflows with highly granular controls of how content is cached and purged. Caching content on Cloudflare’s network lowers the need to source content from hosted servers or origins, and reduces bandwidth utilization costs from the origin. Customers that host their websites with any of Cloudflare’s partners will receive data transit discounts for any requests from their origins to Cloudflare’s network.
according to cloudflare
- cloudflare serve more web traffic than Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Instagram, Bing, & Wikipedia combined.
- Anytime we push code, it immediately affects over 200 million web surfers.
- Every day, more than 10,000 new customers sign-up for Cloudflare service.
- Every week, the average Internet user touches us more than 500 times.
- We serve data from over 165 data centers around the world.
MaxCDN
MaxCDN is a reputable content delivery network that will speed up your website and reduce your server load. It offers an array of industry-leading features such as instant purge and provisioning, instant SSL, full API and GitHub integration and real-time reporting.
MaxCDN integrates easily with most content management systems, such as WordPress, provides easy and intuitive setup and user experience, plus loads more quality benefits all at an affordable price.
KeyCDN
KeyCDN is a high performance content delivery network that has been built for the future. It only takes a few minutes to start delivering content to your users at a blazing fast speed.
know about Features https://www.keycdn.com/features
Other CDNs
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