You can only call your web page a good website if its speed is good. Unfortunately, many factors can slow down the speed and performance of your website and quite often, it is very difficult to find out the exact cause of your site’s speed deficiency. We are lucky to have CDN (Content Network Delivery) which is an efficient technique that can reduce the load of our website and thus speed up the website. So what is CDN and how can it improve the speed of your website?
What is a CDN?
On a simple note, a content delivery network (CDN) is a group of servers set up in various locations to provide web content over a broad geographic zone.
A CDN provides the immediate transfer of assets required for loading Internet content including HTML pages, JavaScript files, stylesheets, images, and videos. The prevalence of CDN services continues to increase, and now the majority of web traffic is served through CDNs.
They’re also termed as “distribution networks,” and the plan is to allow several points of presence (PoPs) outside of the origin server. This allows websites to properly handle traffic by managing user requests faster, giving an overall more pleasant experience.
By expanding the delivery systems out over a vast area, websites can decrease bandwidth usage and page load times, cutting valuable seconds off the time it takes to manage multiple user requests.
What is Content in CDN?
Before going further, it is important to learn what does content means in the content delivery network. Content can be any textual, audible and visual parts of a website like text, pictures, audio files, videos, and so on.
There are two types of content and that includes static and dynamic. Static content is when its original version (input) is what users actually view on the page (output). While dynamic content is the type that varies according to input. It is personalized across pages, depending on user input.
How CDN Works?
A CDN works similarly as the web as a whole. The CDN provider will allocate servers all over the Internet similar to the web’s installation of server hubs across the world. In fact, CDNs are more often installed in geographic locations on earth that are in link to the Internet’s main server hubs, or internet service providers (ISPs). All CDN servers work as a caching station and sync one-sided one party with one another. This serves to give users from all over the world with non-centrally located Internet content, without degradation in the website’s loading speed or content performance quality.
When you start a website and contracts with a CDN provider, the consumer consents the CDN to access the owner’s server network. There, the CDN provider will copy all of a website’s original static content and data, which are uploaded to the CDN servers. The content will remain cached and ready for sharing to the whole of a provider’s service area for the duration of a client’s commitment.
How CDN Speed Up a Website?
Website speed primarily refers to the time it needs for a web page to be fully loaded in a browser. A Content Delivery Network reduces this time in three prominent ways:
The globally distributed nature of a CDN efficiently decreases the gap between users and a website’s resources. Rather than having to connect to the content’s main server which could be located thousands of miles away, users can simply access the same resources from a local data center.
CDNs decrease the amount of data transferred by compressing files. Reduced file sizes suggest faster load times. Ultimately, for sites using SSL certificates, CDNs can optimize connections, further enhancing the site load times and performance.
