A Content Delivery Network (CDN) involves a strategically distributed group of servers located across the world that caches content – such as HTML pages, images, and videos – closer to website visitors. Functioning like an Amazon distribution center, it stores content physically closer to consumers in order to reduce delivery time – aka, loading times for your website. The majority of web traffic is now served through CDNs, including traffic from major websites like Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon.
In addition to improving website loading times, CDNs increase website security by helping to protect them against some malicious attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. They work by placing servers at exchange points between different networks and making optimizations on standard client/server data transfers. They keep websites online by load balancing – distributing network traffic evenly across several servers, providing uninterrupted service, and transferring traffic to another available data center. This effectively prevents the “traffic jam” caused by DDoS attacks.
Finally, CDNs also reduce costs for website owners. By using nearby caches, CDNs reduce the data requested from origin servers, thereby minimizing bandwidth consumption costs. As mentioned before, the caching system also improves a website’s loading times and performance, which means that fewer users will click away from your site and spend longer browsing, which often leads to more lead generation. Anyone who uses the Internet on their PC or mobile device interacts with CDNs and unknowingly enjoys a faster, safer website experience because of them.
Looking to learn more? We suggest heading over to Cloudflare’s Learning Center for an in-depth look at CDNs.
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