A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is an interconnected system of servers that are dispersed across different geographical locations. It helps to deliver content like webpages, images, and videos to users. A CDN is important because it helps to minimize the delay between a user making a request and the server’s response.Â
How Does a CDN Work?
When a user asks for something from a website, the request goes to the nearest edge server that has a cached version of the content. This reduces page load times and ensures faster delivery. When data or information stored on the Edge Server is not available, a request is sent to the origin server to fetch this information. The information fetched from the origin server is then cached for future requests.Â
Key Benefits of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).
- When websites load quickly, users experience a streamlined and pleasant browsing experience. Your SEO rankings will also get a boost, thanks to faster load times.
- Content Delivery Network (CDN) software provides a powerful workflow engine allowing users to integrate business-critical processes and automate repetitive tasks in a simple, yet flexible way.
- Load Balancing: CDNs support the distribution of website traffic over many servers which prevents one single server from overloading during traffic bursts.
- Using a Content Delivery Network can offer protection from DDoS attacks that could block your website and may also come with web application firewall abilities.
Does a CDN Impact SEO?
A CDN does not help SEO rankings directly, however, improved website performance, as a result, of the CDN will improve page load speeds. Improved page load speeds help improve user experience and improve the Core Web Vitals. Hence, SEO will benefit indirectly. Google favors websites that load quickly thus improving SEO rankings.
Using a CDN also removes the worry of hosting the same image on different domains (not an issue according to Google).
CDN vs. DNS.
When you type in a domain name, DNS (Domain Name System) identifies the corresponding IP address. Similarly, a CDN uses DNS to redirect a user’s requests to the most appropriate edge server. This all speeds up the process of getting content to the user.
