Do You Need A Content Delivery System For Your Website?

5 minutes read

A content delivery network is a system comprising proxy servers that relay webpages and online content to a user based on the geographic location of the user, the origin of the data, and the content delivery server. This system is designed to enhance the availability and quality of the information that is delivered to the end users. To achieve optimum performance and speed, the network must be integrated with web hosting.

Technological Application

This system allows for a more efficient retrieval of information for relevant queries, which can enhance the user experience of a website. This is particularly beneficial for websites that have heavy traffic, or sites that are designed to reach a global web audience.

If you have a single server located in a central location, all information retrieval processes will go to that single server. This will cause the server to overload, which will lead to long website loading times, and in worst case scenarios, server crashes.

A CDN averts these scenarios by having your information cached and saved in different servers, specifically for users located in different locations. When a user visits a website, the CDN will redirect the query to the server that is nearest the location of the user. This allows the user to gain access to all static content such as Flash, CSS, JavaScript, and images, without compromising performance, individual load time, or data retrieval. The geographical proximity of the server to the user accelerates content delivery.

Benefits of using CDN

Better UX

Due to faster data retrieval, users experience very little load time on your website while browsing. This means they can freely browse and experience your site without hitches. Research indicates that 47 per cent of consumers expect a page to load within 2 seconds or less, while 40 per cent of web users completely abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Given this very limited window, it is important that users are able to access the information they need from your website almost immediately, or risk losing them altogether.

SEO

Site load time is one of the factors that Google uses to determine the ranking of a website. When Google sees that a site takes a long time to load, it factors that into the overall ranking of the website. If you are angling for first page position on Google SERPs, using a CDN will reduce your site load time and boost your SEO campaign.

Prevents server crashes

When a single server is forced to accommodate more traffic than what it is capable of, it will crash due to overloading. This will render the site useless until the problem is resolved. With a CDN, the traffic is distributed across different servers, based on the origin of the queries, thus making server crashes infrequent.

Cost savings

Foreign web hosting companies have steep charges for site hosting. An alternative to this is a global CDN, most of which are priced at reasonable rates. This allows your website to work across multiple regions at a marginal cost.

If you want to know more about CDN and its benefits, feel free to get in touch with the experts at United Search Engine Optimisation today. Our in-house consultants can provide you with in-depth information on how your website can perform better for your business and your target audience.Facebook