CDN setup for business websites
I put business websites on a content delivery network, so your pages are served from near each visitor and bad traffic is filtered out before it reaches your site. It suits a small business site as well as a big one.
What a CDN is, in plain words
And why it matters even when your business is in one small town.
A CDN, or content delivery network, is a set of servers spread around the world that keep copies of your site's files. Without one, a visitor in Mumbai or Dubai downloads every photo from the one server your site lives on, which may be on another continent. With one, the photos, styles and scripts come from a server much closer to them.
Your customers are rarely all in your town. A hotel sells to people planning from other cities and countries, a college takes students from other states, and an online store may ship anywhere. Every file a page asks for has to make that trip, and a CDN shortens it.
Setting one up also means moving where your domain's records are managed, then choosing which of them run through the network. I handle both, and your email keeps working throughout.
What a CDN does for a small site
The parts that make a difference to a business website, without the jargon.
Caching
Copies of your images, styles and scripts are kept on servers around the world, so repeat visits never reach your own host at all. Whole pages can be cached too, with care on WordPress.
HTTPS
The certificate is issued and renewed on time, so the padlock never lapses because somebody forgot a date.
DDoS protection
Floods of fake traffic meant to knock a site offline are absorbed before they reach your server.
DNS
Fast DNS for your domain, with the website, email and verification records managed in one place.
Hidden email addresses
Email addresses on your pages are disguised from the bots that collect them for spam, while visitors still see and tap them.
Is your site on a CDN yet?
Send me your domain. I'll check how it is set up now and tell you what moving it would involve, with the price first.
What a CDN can't fix
Worth knowing before you expect miracles.
A CDN shortens the trip each file makes. It does nothing about the size of the file. A home page with five photos straight from a camera will still download several megabytes on a phone, just from a closer server. Making the files smaller is speed optimisation, and the two work best together.
It also can't speed up the part of a WordPress page that is built fresh for each visitor, such as a cart, a booking form or a logged-in dashboard, because those must not be cached. What it can do is serve everything around them from nearby, which still makes a clear difference.
And it is not a backup. If the site on your host is broken or deleted, the broken version is what visitors will soon be served. Backups belong with maintenance and website security.
Putting a site on a CDN
Done in an order that keeps your website and your email running throughout.
Copy the DNS
I copy every existing record for your domain across and check each one, email records included.
Switch nameservers
At your registrar, your domain is pointed at its new records. The site stays online while the change spreads.
Turn on the settings
HTTPS for every visitor, caching for images and files, and on WordPress, rules that leave the admin area and forms alone.
Test from a phone
The site, the contact form and email delivery, all checked once the change has gone through.
Domains and hosting themselves are covered on my hosting and domains page.
Questions about CDNs
Do I need a CDN for a small website?
If your visitors are spread across India and abroad, it helps them most. It also brings the padlock, faster lookups and protection from bad traffic, which every site needs whatever its size. For a site with only local visitors the speed gain is smaller, but the rest still applies.
Will this break my WordPress site?
It can if the settings are wrong, for example when pages that should change for each visitor, like a cart or the admin area, are saved and reused. Set up with rules that leave those pages alone, WordPress carries on as normal.
Does this replace my hosting?
No. Your site stays where it is. A CDN sits in front of it and takes the load: it answers visitors from nearby, keeps the padlock valid and filters out bad traffic before it reaches your site.
Does a CDN make my site rank higher?
Not by itself. It can make pages load faster for visitors far from your server, and a faster page keeps more of them reading, but rankings depend on much more than that. SEO covers the rest.
Want a CDN set up properly on your site?
Tell me your domain and where the site is hosted now. I'll explain what changes, what stays the same and the price before I touch anything.