How to Setup CloudFlare CDN for Your Website
What is CDN?
CDN stands for Content Delivery Network and it is a network of servers. CDN delivers your website content to the visitors based on the geographic location. CDN servers spread through the world and they deliver requested content to visitors from nearest server depending to the visitors location. Your website performance will be speed up to 60 % and can handle tons of network traffic. It can also protect from DDOS attack. This is the overview of CDN service. Although there are many CDN service provider on the world, in this article I will only show using with CloudFlare.
CloudFlare CDN supports not only CDN service but also provides website optimization, security, DDOS protection and fastest DNS service. Configuration is easy to setup. Ok, let’s start the journey.
- Sign up at CloudFlare.
- Login and click add site .
- Add your website address and click “ Begin Scan”.
- Just wait a few seconds and CloudFlare will scanning your website. After scanning was completed, click “ Continue Setup” button to continue.
- CloudFlare will show your DNS records, and you can setting up. But don’t touch any setings if you haven’t domain knowledge of DNS records. Click “Continue”.
- Select “Free Website” plan and click “Continue”.
- In this page, CloudFlare will tell you that they can’t detect the registrar of your website. So, you need to configure DNS settings.
- Go to your domain name provider and login with your account. Then, jump to DNS setting. You need to change Nameserver. In this stage, delete existing Nameservers and replace with CloudFlare Nameserver.
- After applying settings, recheck dns configuration on CloudFlare. But it is not an important. CloudFlare will automatically check this. :)
- Wow, the process is successfully completed. Now, your DNS status is pending and it takes up from 15 minutes to 24 hours to activate CDN service. So, just drink a glass of wine and take relaxation.
- After drinking a glass of wine, and finishing relaxation, ping your website. You will see your website IP address has been changed. :)
Enjoy your website with CloudFlare CDN and your will see incredible performance of your website. Test your website performance on Gtmetrix or Pingdom. If you have website performance related problems, check website performance tips article and it can help you.
