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Loading speed of any website or blog matters a lot and almost all bloggers know it. That’s why they use various techniques to improve their site speed, one of which is CDN.
If you are hearing the name CDN for the first time and want to get detailed information about CDN, then you are at right place. Today in this article I will tell you what is CDN and why is it important for any blog or website?
What is CDN
The full name of CDN is “Content Delivery Network”, whose main function is to improve website loading speed.
CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of many servers. Its data servers are located at different locations, which serve content to users based on their geographic location.
For example, suppose your hosting server is in India and when a US visitor requests a page on your website, the CDN will serve the content to that US visitor through the nearest server to that US visitor.
Simply put, when users visit your blog or website, they visit your website or blog through a CDN server. Along with reducing your server load, it also saves bandwidth and improves website loading speed.
Why is CDN necessary for your blog?
If you do not use a CDN on your site and when a user comes to your site, they visit the site through your web host’s server. In such a situation, if your website traffic increases too much, your server may be overloaded and your site will be slow. Even the server may crash.
But when you use a CDN on your site, it creates the cache version of your site on its servers (images, CSS files, javascripts, flash etc.) and serves the content to the users through those servers. Which is closest to the user’s locations. It reduces your server load and improves website loading speed.
Apart from this, if you pay extra for bandwidth, then it also reduces your bandwidth expenditure.
What are the benefits of using a CDN?
After reading the above section, you must have clearly understood that what is CDN and why it is necessary for any blog or website? Below are some of the benefits of using a CDN:
- If you have a high traffic site, then by using a CDN on your site, you can prevent it from going downtime and slowing down to a great extent.
- It improves the loading speed of your site. And we all know that Google uses website loading speed as a ranking factor. So if your site will load fast, then you will get good rank in Google search result.
- It reduces your webhosting server load and prevents your site from crashing. Instead of serving the content to the visitors through the origin server, it serves the content through servers located all over the world which is closest to the visitor’s location.
- If you pay for bandwidth separately, you can reduce the cost of bandwidth by using a CDN.
If I Use a CDN, Will I Need Hosting?
There are many new bloggers who often ask this question – “Do I need to buy web hosting if I still have a CDN?”
A CDN creates a cache version (of images, CSS stylesheets, and JavaScript files) of your site and stores it on its servers. But you still need a main server to host the rest of your site.
In simple words, CDN is designed to increase site performance.
Which CDN should I use for my blog or website?
There are many 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 versions) on my site. It also provides you a lifetime SSL certificate for free.
If you have not yet installed SSL certificate on your site due to low budget, then you can install SSL certificate on your site for lifetime with Cloudflare’s free plan.
Conclusion
CDNs play an important role in making a site run fast and smooth. If your site has visitors from all over the world, then you should use a CDN on your site. It prevents your site from crashing, reduces server load, helps site load faster and much more.
If your budget is very low but want to use a CDN, then you can use the free plan of Cloudflare.