Content distribution networks are crucial part of internet marketing strategy. They provide fast delivery and make content easily available. They improve user experience and are also effective against attacks or traffic spikes. This blog highlights the reasons to use content distribution networks for SEO and also lists some of the best CDN providers.
What is a CDN? Content distribution networks consists of a group of services that are placed across the globe to deliver cached content to the website visitors. What these servers do is that they make a copy of assets like CSS, image, files, etc from the origin server and allow visitors to retrieve all this from the server nearest to them.
How does a CDN work?
A content distribution network has points of presence (PoP) which are data centres, situated around the world. They help to improve the speed at which the content is delivered to the user. CDN caches all files in various locations. So when a user requests, a web page is load faster. A CDN consists of delivery nodes, storage nodes, origin nodes and control nodes. Delivery nodes deliver data to the consumers, while storage notes provide data to caches. Origin nodes are the sources of content and control nodes host the management, routing and monitoring CDN.
Reasons to use a content distribution network for SEO
Content distribution networks are quite useful when it comes to increasing page loading speed and user experience. Here are five reasons to consider using a CDN:
- Reduced latency: Using a CDN helps to reduce website latency as the PoPs create a global network. This reduces network hops when retrieving the assets. In fact by using a CDN which supports HTTP2, content can be delivered even faster. To understand how to enable this protocol, read our blog on WHAT IS HTTP2: IMPACT ON SEO AND HOW TO IMPLEMENT IT.
- Improved SEO: The use of a content delivery network improves page loading speed. Since website speed is a ranking factor, using a CDN will improve rankings. You may also like to read our blog on 5 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE PAGE SPEED that are effective to boost loading speed of your webpages.
- Increased security: Many CDNs provide security from DDoS attacks either manually or by default. Moreover enabling SSL on a CDN allows a more secure connection between the servers and the user.
- Better UX: With better loading speed, reduced latency and improved security, using a CDN offers a better user experience to the visitors. So it is beneficial to use content distribution networks for SEO.
- Easy to integrate: CDNs are widely compatible and can be integrated from CMS or framework. The integration of a CDN is quite easy and straightforward.
Best content distribution network (CDN) providers
- Akamai: This is not usually used by bloggers but by brands and businesses with huge page traffic. It speeds up networks and connections. Akamai also has a strong infrastructure which states of websites and provides create user experience.
- MaxCDN: This CDN has fast service and has one of the fastest response times and flexible pricing models. MaxCDN is used for wordpress, joomla, drupal etc. It utilizes anycast stateless routing for content delivery over multiple connections. You can use it for websites, blogs or gaming platforms.
- Amazon AWS: Amazon Web Services is a collection of cloud computing services offered by Amazon. The operating 12 locations and offer a large scale of cloud services.
- Cloudflare: Cloudflare provides performance, security and access to many websites. Cloudflare offers self service or enterprise plans suit small, medium or very large clients.
Therefore, using content distribution network can drastically speed up the website and the time in which ITIL levels content to users. It offers many other benefits becides improving performance like protection from DDoS and traffic spikes. It is a good idea to use content distribution networks for SEO to improve UX.
