What are content delivery networks ? How can they help you make your website faster?

Tweet

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) consists of a number of computers set up for use as servers and placed in locations scattered across the world. Your website is copied and then those copies are stored on each of those servers. Using content delivery networks to host your content often makes for a faster and smoother experience for visitors to your website. Here are the ways that CDNs can help speed up your website's loading times: * First, since the information that make up your website has multiple redundant copies stored on multiple servers scattered around the world, visitors to your website can send requests to and then receive information from each of those servers. This is important because users receive information faster if that information is sent out from a server that is stored closer to their geographic locations. For example, if you are using shared web hosting to store your website on a server located in New York City, visitors to your website who are based either in or around New York City will find their loading times diminished compared to say, visitors to your website located in Seoul. In contrast, if you are using a CDN to host your website, a visitor located in New York City will be able to receive the website data from a server based there while a visitor located in Seoul will receive it from a server located either in Seoul or somewhere closer to East Asia. * Second, the information that make up your website is stored on multiple servers, meaning that a single server being brought down cannot bring your entire website crashing down. Similarly, a rush of requests being made to swamp that single server has little effect on the loading times of your website for other visitors. If one server goes down or becomes swamped in requests, the CDN will simply reroute their requests to different servers and then send them the information from those servers. * Content delivery networks are also helpful for making your website faster by letting visitors to your website download data from multiple servers at the same time. For example, if a visitor loads up a page on your website and needs to download a large number of images, that visitor would need to get those files from the same server if you were still hosting your website using web hosting options. In contrast, if you are using a content delivery network, that user can receive a portion of those images from one server and the rest from another server. How CDNs Compare to Web Hosting Options CDNs tend to perform better than traditional web hosting options such as shared web hosting and dedicated hosting. Your website being stored on multiple servers means that visitors can access the one closest to them instead of settling for one server that may or may not be located across the world. Similarly, the distribution of your website across multiple servers means that the problems of a single server cannot bring your website grinding to a halt like with traditional web hosting options that are reliant on a single server. Author Bio: David Kendall contributed this guest post on behalf of Who Is Hosting This – a webhosting review platform. David is a freelance technology writer and his articles mainly appear on marketing blogs.

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) consists of a number of computers set up for use as servers and placed in locations scattered across the world. Your website is copied and then those copies are stored on each of those servers. Using content delivery networks to host your content often makes for a faster and smoother experience for visitors to your website.

Here are the ways that CDNs can help speed up your website's loading times:

* First, since the information that make up your website has multiple redundant copies stored on multiple servers scattered around the world, visitors to your website can send requests to and then receive information from each of those servers. This is important because users receive information faster if that information is sent out from a server that is stored closer to their geographic locations. For example, if you are using shared web hosting to store your website on a server located in New York City, visitors to your website who are based either in or around New York City will find their loading times diminished compared to say, visitors to your website located in Seoul. In contrast, if you are using a CDN to host your website, a visitor located in New York City will be able to receive the website data from a server based there while a visitor located in Seoul will receive it from a server located either in Seoul or somewhere closer to East Asia.

* Second, the information that make up your website is stored on multiple servers, meaning that a single server being brought down cannot bring your entire website crashing down. Similarly, a rush of requests being made to swamp that single server has little effect on the loading times of your website for other visitors. If one server goes down or becomes swamped in requests, the CDN will simply reroute their requests to different servers and then send them the information from those servers.

* Content delivery networks are also helpful for making your website faster by letting visitors to your website download data from multiple servers at the same time. For example, if a visitor loads up a page on your website and needs to download a large number of images, that visitor would need to get those files from the same server if you were still hosting your website using web hosting options. In contrast, if you are using a content delivery network, that user can receive a portion of those images from one server and the rest from another server.

How CDNs Compare to Web Hosting Options

CDNs tend to perform better than traditional web hosting options such as shared web hosting and dedicated hosting. Your website being stored on multiple servers means that visitors can access the one closest to them instead of settling for one server that may or may not be located across the world. Similarly, the distribution of your website across multiple servers means that the problems of a single server cannot bring your website grinding to a halt like with traditional web hosting options that are reliant on a single server.

Author Bio:

David Kendall contributed this guest post on behalf of Who Is Hosting This – a webhosting review platform. David is a freelance technology writer and his articles mainly appear on marketing blogs.

Get free daily email updates!

Follow us!

[Get this widget]