How using a CDN is better for people and the planet.

Written by Chris Butterworth - April 17, 2020

Here at Wholegrain, we do our best to create websites that are good for people and the planet. As part of that, we use a selection of tools and services to help us. One of the key tools in our armoury is a CDN.

CDN stands for content delivery network and does exactly what it says, delivering content to users via its own network of super quick servers around the world, improving the performance of your website internationally. It also has an amazing positive impact on user experience, and the planet.

From a user’s point of view, it decreases loading times, making for a better experience and potentially increasing conversion rates as pointed out many times by multiple companies.

CDNs work by having a copy of static files on each of its servers located around the world. This means that when a user accesses your website, these files are served from a local CDN server, meaning data doesn’t have to travel as far. Reducing data transfer is better for the planet too!

WordPress can support many CDNs including KeyCDN, MaxCDN and numerous others as there are a lot of plugins to use supplied by these providers. Some hosting platforms, like Kinsta, even have their own CDN that is automatically enabled.

A CDN that is easy to set up and can give additional protections such as DDoS attack prevention is CloudFlare. CloudFlare runs at the DNS level so instead of offloading files directly to their server, this happens automatically whenever a file is requested while using their services. The added bonus with CloudFlare – and the reason they are one of our favourites – is that they are actively trying to lower the carbon footprint of their operations and have managed to become carbon neutral with their North America operations.

Get in touch to see how we can use a CDN, and our other tools, to help make a faster website that’s good for you, your users and the planet.