A CDN or Content Delivery Network is a network of servers which are linked together from across the world to deliver website content to users quicker, cheaper and more securely.
The benefits of using a CDN largely depends on the size and requirements of the website content being delivered as well as the users which it is being delivered to. For most users, there are 4 primary benefits which can be broken down into the following:
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Improved Website Load Speed
When using a CDN to deliver website content from multiple geographical locations across the world, your content can be distributed to your users from their nearest CDN server. This will guarantee that website content will be loaded faster for the user which in turn, will increase the number of users on your website and the amount of time they spend on it. Users who interact with a slow loading website tend to click away more.
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Improved Security
The security of your website may be improved with the use of a CDN by providing improvements to security certificates and mitigate against a Distributed Denial of Service or DDOS attack.
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Redundancy & Content Availability
Normal website functions can be overloaded by sudden large amounts of traffic or interrupted by hardware failures. However, a CDN can reduce any interruptions to the availability of your website due to the distributed availability of your website content.
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Lower Bandwidth Costs
One of the primary website hosting costs for website owners is bandwidth or the amount of data which the website and it's database provides to the end user. This increases as the amount of bandwidth increase but by using a CDN alongside caches and other optimisations, this can be reduced which in turn, reduces the bandwidth costs for the website owner.