How CDN Improves Speed?

Improving loading speed is an invaluable upgrade for your website. It will not only withstand heavy loads from numerous simultaneous user requests but will also attract new clients. That’s right — Google algorithm assesses load speed as a part of user experience via Core Web Vitals signals. If it is good, your page is more likely to get higher in search and receive more clicks! And according to Kissmetrics research 40% abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Now that we’ve got your attention let’s see how to improve the load speed using CDNs (Content Delivery Networks).

CDN Latency

We’ve already explained what the origin servers are. In short, they store the original version of your website. They do have a physical location though, and the time (or delay) it takes for the data to travel from this location to your device is called latency. And the closer to 0 it is, the better. However, it can never reach 0.

The reason is simple — data has to travel through physical cables and wires. Nowadays, it can travel with the speed of light thanks to fiber optic technology. But thousands of miles on the bottom of the ocean take even light some time to go through. The time which might be precious. To decrease the latency, you should know the reason why it exists. There are three main types of delays:

Propagation.

As we have mentioned, data travel distances to reach the user. The larger these distances are, the higher the propagation delay is.

Transmission.

While optic fiber is becoming the standard cable technology, many slower copper T1 lines are still in service. But even the optic fiber linkage has its limits. And these limits constitute transmission delays.

Queuing.

Cables also have limited bandwidth. If the amount of data awaiting transmission exceeds this bandwidth, it will queue and reach the final destination slower.

As you can see, the solution to all these issues comes naturally — establish servers closer to the users. Such edge servers constitute the CDNs. And, thanks to geographical proximity and ramified linkage, the CDN latency is much lower.

CDN speed factors

While all CDNs generally increase the website loading speed, they might vary in effectiveness. That’s why it’s crucial to look into available CDN providers before choosing one.

The two major factors impacting CDN effectiveness are:

• Edge coverage. Look into CDN providers with an outspread coverage, including numerous edge servers. Such infrastructure will significantly reduce latency, thanks to the short distance to users. Besides, it would allow attracting more clients it would allow attracting more clients from other locations. For instance, in Uploadcare we offer more than 235000 edge locations worldwide — from Anchorage to Wellington.

• Caching and optimization. There are a variety of ways cached versions of your website could be not just stored, but optimized for increased CDN performance. Remember — bandwidth is limited. Therefore such an approach as compression could prove to be a lifesaver. We took an extra step here and adopted the ai use for compression. As a result, we reached the highest possible compression results without quality loss. That means that we offer one of the highest possible image loading speeds. And the visual part of your pages can work miracles for attracting and engaging new users.

Learn more

CDNs are vital in case you want to improve your website’s load speed. They will also be a great helping hand if you target clients outside of a particular region. However, in case you don't, there’s still a reason to use CDNs: they might save you precious seconds needed for the client to stay on your page.

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