What is CDN?
A content delivery network (CDN), is a geographically distributed network of servers that serves web content close to the users. The goal of a CDN is to increase performance, audience reach, availability and content offload from the original server by caching content close to the users.
When your website is not using a CDN, your content will likely be served from a single location, this may be a physical server or a location / region with a cloud provider. When a user visits your website, the content will be retrieved from the location your data is stored. The further the users are from the origin server, the longer the data physically needs to travel which causes very noticeable delays. Often a lot of the same data is being served that rarely changes, but still every user needs to get your files from your server.
The benefit of a CDN is that it can cut down on loading times and application costs (bandwidth and server load). Instead of retrieving the content from your server, the users will retrieve the content from a CDN operated data center that is close to them. Due to the caching mechanisms in place, the content can immediately be served without requiring a complete round trip back to your server. This drastically improves the performance for your audience.
Latency and speed issues tend to negatively impact websites and cause lower conversion rates. This is why nowadays most of the key players and large eCommerce websites are already using a CDN, and sometimes even more than one to increase their global reach. Keep reading on ‘What is Tinify CDN’!
