Content Delivery Networks: Speeding Up Global Websites
Content Delivery Networks: Speeding Up Global Websites A content delivery network (CDN) is a group of servers spread around the world. The goal is to bring your content physically closer to visitors. When someone loads your site, the CDN serves many files from the nearest location instead of always going back to your origin server. This simple change can cut travel time for bytes and make pages feel faster. How a CDN speeds up pages is usually simple. Edge servers cache static files like images, CSS, and JavaScript. If the user in Europe visits a site built in the United States, the CDN may deliver from a nearby European server. Protocol tricks, such as HTTP/2 or HTTP/3, and smart routing, also help reduce delays even further. The result is faster first loads and smoother interactions. ...