But should you use Cloudflare?<\/p>\n
In this post, I\u2019ll walk you through what you need to consider so you have all the information you need to decide if it\u2019s right for you.<\/p>\n
Note: If you aren\u2019t familiar with what a CDN is, I\u2019d encourage you to first read up on how CDNs work<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cloudflare has quickly grown to become one of the world\u2019s largest content delivery networks (CDNs). Launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in 2008, Cloudflare now provides CDN services to 12 million domains via 155 data centers around the world.<\/p>\n Here are a few interesting facts from Cloudflare\u2019s About page<\/a>:<\/p>\n The company\u2019s focus is largely on providing performance and security services that work in conjunction to reduce latency for websites, mobile applications, and APIs end-to-end, while protecting against DDoS attacks, malicious bots, and data breaches.<\/p>\n Cloudflare is more than just its Free plan. While the Free plan allows users with small sites to try out Cloudflare, there are Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans for sites that need heavy duty performance and security features, such as a web application firewall (WAF), Railgun web optimization, advanced DDoS support, and more.<\/p>\n Maybe.<\/p>\n It really depends on your website\u2019s needs and whether Cloudflare has the features you need at price points that suit you.<\/p>\n The question you should be asking yourself first is: Do you need a CDN?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s do a quick refresher on how CDNs work.<\/p>\n When a visitor to your site is geographically located close to your server (i.e. in the same country), there are fewer hopes for your content to travel, ensuring a relatively fast connection for the visitor. But if a visitor is located some distance away from your server (i.e. in another continent), your site\u2019s content has to travel much further, resulting in slow page load times.<\/p>\n CDNs solve this problem by providing a globally distributed network of edge servers that keep a copy of your site\u2019s static content. So when someone visits your site and they are located halfway around the world, for instance, the request is routed to the nearest possible edge server, reducing latency and serving up content quicker.<\/p>\n For site owners who have visitors from all over the world, CDNs can help deliver a faster site experience, especially when you take into account that on average, 80% of a website consists of static resources.<\/p>\n Do you need a CDN? Here are a few questions you should consider:<\/p>\n If you answered yes to more than one of those questions, it\u2019s worth considering a CDN.<\/p>\n CDNs provide many additional benefits besides just the performance factors.<\/p>\n 1. Improved Website Load Times<\/strong><\/p>\n The performance factors really are the number one reason why you would consider a CDN. CDNs like Cloudflare enabled you to serve up content closer to where your visitors are located using an edge server, providing an easy way to speed up your site while also reducing the latency.<\/p>\n 2. Reduced Bandwidth Costs<\/strong><\/p>\n For many sites, bandwidth consumption costs is a primary expense. Through caching and other optimizations, CDNs can help reduce the amount of data an origin server must provide, in turn reducing hosting costs for site owners.<\/p>\n 3. Increased Content Availability and Redundancy<\/strong><\/p>\n In other words, CDNs can help mitigate unexpected traffic surges, enabling your site to scale when needed. Large amounts of traffic when you least expect it can cause your site to go down. Thanks to the distributed nature of CDNs, they can handle more traffic.<\/p>\n 4. Security and DDoS Protection<\/strong><\/p>\n CDNs can help improve your site\u2019s security by protecting against DDoS attacks, data breaches, and malicious bots. When you consider that the majority of web traffic is served through CDNs<\/a>, they really are the first line of defense against malicious attacks.<\/p>\n 4. SEO<\/strong><\/p>\n Google has long-considered speed a ranking factor in its algorithms<\/a>. So the faster your website is, the more likely it will rank well in SERPs. As Google\u2019s Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts highlighted in 2010 when announcing site speed as a ranking factor:<\/p>\nWhat is Cloudflare?<\/h2>\n
![\"What](\"https:\/\/wp-rocket.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/1\/what-is-cloudflare.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
Should I Use Cloudflare?<\/h2>\n
Okay, Do I Need a CDN?<\/h2>\n
\n
What Are the Benefits of Using a CDN?<\/h3>\n