When you hear the term CDN for the very first time you might wonder what exactly it is. Well CDN is an acronym for Content Delivery Network. If you’re serious about speeding up your website and you’ve optimized the code to the best of your ability but still if it’s not up to the standard, then using a Content Delivery Network should be your next step.

What is a CDN?

A Content Delivery Network is a network of servers located in different parts of a country or the globe that stores files to be used by your website visitors to improve the performance. In other words, a content delivery network is a globally distributed network (which is why CDN is also called as Content Distribution Network) of proxy servers deployed in multiple data centers with the goal of serving content to end-users with high availability and high performance.

Usually, there is some amount of latency or waiting time for a website user who is visiting a page that is hosted thousands of miles away. Also, there are routing issues that can occur when a user is seeing such a webpage. If someone in Sri Lanka is using a webpage that is hosted in USA, they will probably see a slower site because of the above-mentioned routing issues and distance the files have to travel.

By having your files on several servers across a geographical area you can make sure the user is loading files that are near them, not all the way across the country or ocean.

Some might call Content delivery networks another strategy to improve web ranking as well as improve the website overall, and it’s true. Right now, it is important to make sure the website is working well for all the users and that it is fast so that they won’t be hesitant to come back for even more.

Advantages of having a CDN

• Good experience for the user of your website
• Improve the page speed of your site
• Saves money
• Usage Analytics of the website
• Distributed Data centers

These are just some of the advantages but there are a lot more. You will personally experience them if and when you try a Content Delivery Network.

Should I get one?

Probably if you’re serious about your website, you should get one. It really makes a big difference and

Talking about the prices, Just like virtually every web service offered, there are all levels of costs for content delivery networks from free to premium prices.

Inxy CDN (who is the sponsor for this post) offers some good plans which you can check out here. They also offer CDN free trial for you that will last up to a month so that you can test out whether it is the right one for you. You can also find a lot of other CDN providers if you check online.

If you’re just getting started online, then maybe you should check a bit more about these things before you just jump in to it with Content Delivery Networks but if you think you’re ready for the pro level, then having a CDN is a must.

Disclaimer – This is a sponsored post that contains affiliate links.