{"id":670,"date":"2020-12-27T14:43:57","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T12:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnaboutwebsites.com\/?p=670"},"modified":"2020-12-27T14:44:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T12:44:10","slug":"what-is-a-cdn-and-when-to-use-a-cdn-for-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learnaboutwebsites.com\/what-is-a-cdn-and-when-to-use-a-cdn-for-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is a CDN? And When To Use a CDN For Your Website"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the time of writing this post, this website isn’t connected to a Content Delivery Network (CDN) as of yet. Though I’m planning use one in the near future as my website starts to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a CDN?
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of servers geographically distributed around the globe. Storing a website’s static content on these servers, minimizes delays for loading webpages. As the physical distance between a website’s visitor and the server is reduced<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main benefit of using a CDN is increasing your website’s speed. Though this isn’t the only benefit of using a CDN, and there use cases where you don’t actually need one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CDN explained in layman terms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A website is nothing more than a bunch of files stored on a computer (server) which is connected to the internet. When someone visits your website, their browser will first try to locate the web server (computer) on which your website is hosted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the connection is established, the visitor’s browser will download all the files needed to properly display the website. How many files and what kinds are required, depend on the content which needs to be displayed. Below you’ll find some example files types:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • HTML<\/li>
  • CSS<\/li>
  • Javascript<\/li>
  • Fonts<\/li>
  • Images<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    If you’re hosting a website without the use of a CDN, all these files will be downloaded from your web server. Though when you make use of a CDN, these files will be stored (cached) on a network of servers spread over many different locations around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    [Image world web server | world CMS servers]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Although the internet is lightning fast, the bits and bytes still need to travel the distance. I’ll show you what kind of impact this has, by sharing test results for this website. After we’ve analyzed these test results, I’ll share the benefits of using a CDN in more detail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    To make your life a bit easier I’ve added a table of contents below:<\/p>\n\n\n