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USING CDNS AND WEB HOSTING TOGETHER

Many small businesses start off using shared hosting with ‘unlimited’ bandwidth.
This sounds like a great deal. But check the fine print. Unlimited bandwidth may
not be all that it seems. Hosting providers have fair-use clauses that allow for
‘normal’ usage. If one of your products or blog posts goes viral, your blog is
going to exceed those limits. The more people that are loading content from your
server, the more your host will struggle with the load. Your site may be taken
offline for exceeding the host’s fair usage clause.


PREVENTING AN OVERLOAD WITH CHARGES

This is just one example of a scenario where a CDN could help. If you
implemented a CDN before the viral post or product went live, the scripts and
media associated with it would be distributed globally to many servers, instead
of just one. So as users hit your website, the CDN serves the content,
lightening the load on your web hosting provider. Sure, you may still incur
overage charges for the increased bandwidth during the spike. But the CDN will
help to keep your website online for longer, and maximize the bandwidth your
host has provided.


HOSTING SERVER SPEED

Another factor is the speed of your web hosting server. A customer located close
to your host’s datacenter will likely see fast load times. But a visitor located
on another continent will see it load slower. Again, the CDN steps in to help,
because it can intelligently serve content from the closest location, making
load times faster. For small business owners, this is important, because a few
seconds can make the difference between a completed purchase and an abandoned
cart.


TYPES OF CONTENT

There are a number of different types of content that you can use a CDN to host
or access. The two main types are static content and dynamic content. Let’s
compare the two in a simple format, before going into more detail:

  The State of Content  Where is the Data Stored?  Editing Content  Examples 
Static Content  Non-changing On the page Easy-to-edit ‘About’ page of a company
or organization Dynamic Content  Constantly changing Usually in a database
Development knowledge recommended Product Page of an E-commerce store


STATIC CONTENT

Static content is information that can be sent over a CDN to the end user
without the need for processing or modification. It doesn’t change and
therefore, it is one of the most efficient types of content to send over a
Content Delivery Network. It can include your company’s images, CSS files,
Javascript files and others.


DYNAMIC CONTENT

On the other hand, dynamic content is information that changes regularly or
content that changes depending on the end-user.


WHAT IS AN ORIGIN SERVER?

An origin server is designed to respond to incoming Internet requests from
clients. it is often used alongside an edge server or caching server. This
server can take on all the responsibility of serving up the content of a
website, provided that latency is not a huge factor for your website. It is
important that this functions well because it is the primary source of your
website’s data


WHAT IS ROUND-TRIP TIME?

Round-trip time is a key factor for measuring network latency and the page
loading times on your website. It is important to keep this figure low in order
to ensure rapid responses between your website and other users on the internet.


BATTLE OF THE CDNS: MAXCDN VS. AKAMI VS. CLOUDFLARE

CloudFlare, MaxCDN, and Akami are some of the market leaders in the Content
Delivery Network field. Each has unique attributes and the one that’s right for
you depends on your business’s financial situation and the location of your
website and your customer base. Important factors to bear in mind include server
locations, pricing, and performance. Without going into a biased comparison of
all three, let’s just re-establish the 10 of most important advanced features of
a functioning CDN for your website:
 1.  Push functionality
 2.  Pull functionality
 3.  Origin shield
 4.  Logging
 5.  Cache control
 6.  HTTP/2 support
 7.  DDoS protection
 8.  Customizability
 9.  Diagnostics/Analytics logs of some sort
 10. Geo-filtering


SO, SHOULD I USE A CDN?

Yes. Every small business website will benefit from a CDN. CDNs really do offer
small businesses massive benefits. They improve customers’ experience. They give
your search engine rankings a boost. They help to protect your website, and they
can reduce overage fees at your web host. And let’s not forget that fast loading
speeds are essential when working on conversion optimization. With so many free
options, signing up is a no-brainer. And if you need more support, you can
choose a paid plan. Our genuine user ratings should help you to avoid the hassle
of making the wrong choice.


FURTHER CDN BENEFITS

We briefly looked at the benefits of a CDN at the beginning of this article. In
truth, there are some more hidden benefits that we haven’t yet discussed.


SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS

All business owners need to rank well for the keywords they want to focus on.
Faster load times are just one of the factors that Google takes into account. So
the faster you can load your site, the more likely it is that your rankings will
be good. Anyhow, to wrap things up, some key additional factors you may want to
consider when selecting a CDN are:
 * Conversions
 * Streaming media
 * Mirroring
 * Security


CONVERSIONS

Customers want sites to load fast. This applies on regular small business sites
just as much as it does on an ecommerce site. If pages load fast, there’s less
chance the customer will be frustrated. You really want to avoid having a site
that crawls, because when a shopper becomes frustrated, they’re going to try a
competitor’s website to see if it offers a better experience.


STREAMING MEDIA

If you serve audio or video on your website, a CDN will help that content to
load quicker. For example, if you’ve invested in recording product
walk-throughs, your customers will be able to load them without delay. Better
load times also tend to reduce buffering and ensure video quality is the best it
can be. That gives the user a better experience, and it shows off products in a
much more positive light.


MIRRORING

CDNs distribute the same files over multiple servers in different locations.
This is a built-in defense against downtime because one server outage shouldn’t
bring down your entire website. In fact, some CDNs mirror your entire site so
that they can serve a cached copy during hosting downtime. When taking this
factor into consideration, ensure you do your research about the company’s
datacenters, locations, and specifications. Most of this information is often
available on their respective website.


SECURITY

Many CDNs can protect your site against security risks from hackers and
cybercriminals. For example, they can automatically block suspicious traffic or
limit access to IP addresses that you type in manually. Further threats include
DDoS attacks, which your CDN provider can and most definitely should be prepared
against, otherwise, you may want to re-evaluate your choice.


ARE THERE ANY CDN RISKS?

Yes. The main downside of a CDN is that it creates a new point of failure. But
don’t panic, as bad as this sounds, the explanation is really quite simple. Your
site needs both your host and your CDN to be online and functional (unless you
have advanced caching in place. Remember that CDNs are built for availability.
So this isn’t likely to be an issue with a good provider. But it’s worth bearing
in mind when you’re comparing one provider’s track record with another.


REDUCING LOAD TIME

The other disadvantage is a reduced loading time when the CDN doesn’t have
enough servers in the most important places. For example, a CDN with lots of
servers in Europe can’t improve load times for someone in Australia. The only
solution to this is to have a server in the target location – there is simply no
way around it. To negate this risk, you can compare CDNs and find one with
servers in the locations where your customers are most likely to be located.


FEATURE OVERVIEW AND COSTS

By now, you’ll be getting a feel for the features that you’ll need from a CDN.
But there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution that will be right for every small
business. Review this list, and pick out the CDN features that are most
important to you:
 * Support for high definition video streaming
 * Mobile delivery optimization, including AMP support
 * Analytics and reporting
 * Firewalls, security, and DDoS protection
 * Integration with rights management services
 * Free plans or trial periods

As we covered advanced feature lists and functionalities previously, there is a
vast range of specifications to take into account.


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Talking about CDNs is an incredibly broad topic, so we can’t possibly answer
every question you have in a single page. Anyhow, we will attempt to cover the
most obvious ones in the below section.


WHAT PROBLEMS DO CDNS SOLVE?

Often looked over by those who are unaware of their functionalities, CDNs are
responsible for a variety of problem-solving tasks behind the scenes. In layman
terms, some of them being are:
 * Reducing bandwidth
 * Improving availability
 * Processing times of receipt and delivery of data

In other words, CDNs are responsible for a huge part of your website’s overall
efficiency.


ARE CDNS HELPFUL FOR MOBILE USERS?

Yes, CDNs are helpful for mobile users. Lag times can frustrate mobile users in
particular, causing them to bounce away. According to research by Think
with Google, “Fifty-three percent of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes
longer than 3 seconds to load.” Visits that bounce can translate into lost
sales, lower engagement, fewer return visitors,  and can contribute to lower
search engine rankings.


WHAT IS THE BEST CDN FOR ME?

There is no best CDN as a whole, although there is the best choice for YOU. It
is entirely down to your website’s structure, as well as the host you’re with.
Most importantly, however, the server locations of the CDN provider are
paramount to assuring that your users have a seamless browsing experience.