The loading speed of any website or blog matters a lot and almost all the bloggers know it. Therefore, they use a variety of techniques to improve their site speed, one of which is also the CDN.
Today in this article, I will tell you what is CDN and why is it necessary for any blog or website?
Some common questions related to CDN which are often asked by site owners:
- What is a CDN?
- What are the benefits of using CDN?
- Does my site require a CDN?
- If I use a CDN, do I need hosting?
What Is CDN
CDN’s full name is “Content Delivery Network”. Its main goal is to improve website loading speed.
CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a global network of servers. Its data server is located at different locations which serve content based on user geographic location.
For Example,
Let’s say that your hosting server is in India and when a US visitors requests a page on your website, then your US visitors would be able to load that static content from a server that’s closest to them.
Why is CDN necessary for your blog?
If you do not use CDN on your site and when a user comes to your site, they visit the site through the server of your web host. Suddenly, if your website traffic increases a lot, then your server may be overloaded and your site will be slow. Even the server may crash.
But when you use the CDN on your site, it creates a Cache version of your site on its servers and delivers content through the servers that are closest to the user’s locations. This reduces your server load and improves website loading speed.
Apart from this, if you pay Extra for Bandwidth, it also reduces your Bandwidth cost.
What are the benefits of using CDN?
After reading the above section, you have clearly understood what is CDN and why it is necessary for any blog or website? Here are some benefits of using CDN below:
- If you have a high traffic site, you can prevent your website from going downtime and slow down using CDN on your site.
- This improves the loading speed of your site. And we all know that Google uses the website loading speed as a ranking factor. Your site will load fast, Google gives a better position in the search result.
- Distribute content through servers located around the world rather than your origin server. This reduces the load on your web hosting server and protects your site from being crashed.
- If you pay for bandwidth separately, you can reduce the cost of bandwidth by using CDN.
If I use a CDN, do I need hosting?
There are many new bloggers who often ask this question – “do I still need to purchase web hosting if I have a CDN”
The short answer will be – YES!
CDN only creates a Cache version of your site and stores it on its servers. But you still need the main server to host the rest of your site.
CDN is designed to increase site performance.
Which CDN should I use for my blog or website?
There are lots of CDN services available in the market, in which MaxCDN, KeyCDN, Cloudflare are very popular and some hosting companies also come with built-in CDN.
Currently, I use Cloudflare CDN (available in Free and Premium version) on my site. It also provides a free SSL certificate for a lifetime.
Due to the low budget, if you have not yet installed SSL certificate on your site, you can use Cloudflare’s SSL certificate. You can read this guide – How to setup Cloudflare Flexible SSL in WordPress site
Final Thoughts
A CDN plays an important role in running the site faster and smoother.
If visitors from around the world come to your site, then you should use the CDN on your site. This prevents your site from crashing, reduce server load, make your site faster, and more.
If you have a very low budget but want to use the CDN, you can use the Cloudflare Free Plan.
I hope this article helped you understand what is CDN and why is it necessary for any blog or website?
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