What does a CDN mean?
CDN is short for Content Delivery Network which is a collection of servers all over the world that hold a copy of your site’s files. Pretty confusing? Let’s break it down in simpler words.
Lets say you have a business located in Ireland and your web host’s server is located at a central location i.e Dublin, Ireland. But for example, if someone from Houston, TX tries to access it, then they will be redirected to the closest server which would be in Dublin. The distance between the visitor is very large and will have an impact on the load time of your site.
This is when CDN comes in handy. In simple words, the closer the CDN server is to where your user is, the faster the user gets the content. By having your content deployed across multiple dispersed servers around the world, you can make your pages load faster from the user’s perspective. This doesn’t apply only for the visitor in Houston it will improve load times from all around the world. They could be in Sydney, AU or even in Venice, IT they will see an increase in load times.
To clarify
A CDN is something you use on top of having web hosting because it helps speed up things. Using a CDN does not replace your original web hosting. So you would be paying for web hosting as well as a CDN.
Volume of traffic
If you have high volume of traffic, this can lead to overloading your server, ending in a slow loading site or even server crash. This is where a CDN comes in handy because it hosts a network of servers, which are spread across the world. When you use a CDN, your static content is cached and stored on all of these servers.
What is static content?
Static content includes images, stylesheets (css files), javascripts, Flash, etc. Now when a user visits your site (original server), the CDN technology redirects them to the closest server to their location.
Conclusion
These are some of the advantages that you may see on a site using a CDN:
Speed – The site gets faster.
Crash Resistance – CDN allows to distribute the load to multiple servers instead of having 100% traffic on a main server, making it less likely to crash.
Improved User Experience – Declining bounce rate due to load times with increased number in page views and numbers of pages viewed by each user. Leading to an overall improved user experience.
Improvement in SEO – Google stated that faster sites tend to rank higher in their Search Engine. Thanks to a CDN your site will start ranking higher once using a CDN.
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