Español
Deutsch
A visitor far from your server's physical location will always experience some added latency — a CDN is the standard fix.
The Distance Problem
Data physically takes longer to travel further distances. A visitor in Vancouver accessing a server in Montreal experiences more latency than one accessing it from Toronto, purely due to physical distance.
How a CDN Solves It
A content delivery network caches copies of your static content (images, CSS, JavaScript) on servers distributed around the world, serving each visitor from the location physically closest to them.
What a CDN Doesn't Speed Up
Dynamic content generated fresh for each request (like a personalized dashboard) generally still needs to reach your origin server — a CDN's biggest wins are on static assets and pages that can be cached.
Setting One Up
Most CDN services require pointing your domain's DNS through their network, or integrating via a plugin for CMS platforms like WordPress — many can be set up in under an hour with no code changes.
Additional Benefits
Beyond speed, CDNs typically add a layer of DDoS protection and traffic filtering, since malicious traffic gets absorbed at the CDN's edge before it ever reaches your actual server.
