Are CDN's good or bad for SEO? - Edmonton Web

[Web3Marketing87]

Hello Moz folks,

We just launched a new website: www.edmontonweb.ca

It is now ranking on page 2 in our city. The website is built on Wordpress and we have made every effort to make it load faster. We have enabled the right caching and we have reduced the file size.

Still, some of our local competitors have lower load times and more importantly lower ttfb's.

Is a CDN the right answer? I've read articles demonstrating that Clowd Flare decreased a websites rankings. Is there a better CDN to use, or a propper way to implement Clowd Flare?

Thank you very much for your help!

Anton,
LAUNCH Edmonton

[BlueprintMarketing]

You did a fantastic job optimizing your site to the best what can be done with the current host. Because the caching and infrastructure of a host matter so much get flywheel is going to be the best choice for you.

http://getflywheel.com/tour/

Your site comes in at 6 seconds for 1st load and just over 2 seconds 2nd load checking out the 2nd load time you have done an absolutely fantastic job of getting rid of requests and speeding up the site to the best of its abilities. It's going to be a combination of the quality fast host getflywheel along with a CDN that makes your site ridiculous fast.

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140120_32_SJ/

Add the better host add the better CDN and you can see from the results below how much faster your site will be. Honestly they will tune your site for you will love it.

http://www.webpagetest.org/performance_optimization.php?test=140120_32_SJ&run=1&cached=0

Thomas

[BlueprintMarketing]

yes sorry if my comments were very long prior

use getflywheel.com they will give you the best hosting experience you can add the content delivery network that would cost you a lot more if it were not being resold through this hosting company for $10 more a month.

Getflywheel.com is built on top of digital ocean so all they are is a souped-up version of digital ocean for WordPress considering your an agency, and you want your site to be as fast as possible I can certainly attest to that in Canada get flywheel is extremely fast. Simply tell them you want to be placed in their West Coast data center.

if you do not want managed WordPress hosting which I think would be a bad idea not to choose it because you get so much for so little you can then use just digital ocean which is going to be fast, but not as fast as get flywheel because GetFlywheel is built for WordPress so there are lots of extras that will cost you a ton of money to add with other companies. A good example is Net DNA CDN now called MaxCDN enterprise this would cost you anywhere from 500 to 1000 month and less you purchased it  as a package with the hosting

http://getflywheel.com/pricing/

pick either the $15 month plan or the $30 month plan to add the CDN  simply choose to turn it on in the very easy to use WordPress only control panel they have made

to see what I'm talking about click through the slider at the top you will see the entire control panel that allows you to everything WordPress can do plus WordPress is already installed when you log into your account.

I forgot to mention that they will migrate your website completely free this is a very easy decision to make for me because I would rather have spent $25 with CDN and get fantastic support that is coming from a WordPress expert. I Know you're running a business so this is going to be a choice I know you'll like.

Your website currently runs  on shared hosting with an Apache Web server  regular overloaded SATA drives, and you have no control over if someone else uses more resources then they're supposed to and slows down your website plus blue host throttles you.

compared to GetFlywheel runs a VPS will no one  Nginx Webserver with SSD drives,

No one can slow down your site because they're running some crazy configuration on a shared server. A VPS it's just you plus you get your own IP address which is very nice. Add this enterprise class CDN and you have a Geo compared to Lamborghini

I hope this is been of help I'm sorry it's been so long winded.

My reasons for choosing this host our stated above. Plus they have proven to me that they are extremely fast in your area.

http://getflywheel.com gives you so much more than other companies do for hundreds of dollars a month in some cases.

Sign up for an account, and they will ask you your server information so that they can migrate your site.

I hope this is a bit of help I'm sorry I was so long-winded please let me know if you have anymore questions and I will promise to give you simpler answers.

Sincerely,

Thomas

[BlueprintMarketing]

honestly I would definitely pick GetFlywheel they are a managed WordPress hosting company built on top of digital ocean.

if you don't want to spend $25 a month definitely still use digital ocean over blue host the company that you're using right now.

My best recommendation for your situation would be to implement a WordPress hosting company http://getflywheel.com they are the guys that offer expertise on WordPress plus manage your entire website.  plus they will migrate your website for free most other hosting companies charge $100-$200 for that.   Simply tell them you and have your VPS setup in the West Coast data center and they will do that no problem.

for where your company is located geographically I would go to

on http://getflywheel.com  sign up for the middle plan were the beginning add the CDN at the end of the day year site will be safest, fastest and the easiest to deal with because you are on a managed hosting provider that has an incredible knowledge of WordPress and fantastic support. It is digital ocean built just for WordPress website is built on WordPress it will run the best

the only thing you might want to do is add a quality DNS host. Any cast DNS works like a CDN for DNS so you can spend pennies sometimes a little bit over a dollar a month on AWS route 53 and get very reliable fast DNS. The only thing you will need to do is add the IP & CDN cname to your current DNS or you can get much better DNS using any of the companies listed below. If you want a cheap easy setup use either DNS made easy or AWS route 53

I don't mean to keep going on about things that I think these things are important. Most likely you're going to want to choose simply to put it on DNS made easy or a AWS  route 53

however if I did not tell you this other information I would feel pretty bad.

Dyn  offers unicast DNS for $25 a year they also offer any cast DNS starting at $15 a month

http://dyn.com/standard-dns/

http://dyn.com/managed-dns-express/

I would pick one of two things AWS route 53 is extremely cheap very fast and very simple to implement.

you can get 10 domains with 5 million a month queries way more than you'll ever need on http://DNSmadeeasy.com $25 a year NOT month yearly

http://aws.amazon.com/route53/ cost would be under a dollar a month

if you are controlling your customers websites you want to have all the DNS in one place so it's easy for you to make changes. And any cast DNS is much faster than unicast and more reliable.

You can now get Akamai's DNS for $7 a month with

http://www.zerigo.com/managed-dns/pricing

My favorite DNS is DynECT

If you have close to 50 clients I would recommend edge cast routing I would also recommend their CDN if you are looking to spend a lot more money.

when you create new websites for customers I saw your site it's beautiful. You can create the site for free with get flywheel then pass the billing off to your customer. It is an awesome way to resell hosting without having to do anything your customers will love it.

I don't know how much traffic you get but if you look at your analytics simply figure out how many unique IP's you get in 24 hours and that is what you need for a plan.

a very high amount of companies can get by on the smallest plan for this reason. You can then add an enterprise content delivery network that is preconfigured by them for WordPress and your website.

Let us if your site does not perform as you like it to on a managed WordPress hosting company I can tell you from personal experience this one will go out of its way to do whatever is needed to make your site perform at the level you would expect. I honestly would purchase the $30 dollar plan plus CDN that  way you do not ever have to worry about visitors if you do honestly you got so much traffic you should not have to worry about the cost of hosting.

http://getflywheel.com/pricing/

CDN (+$10/mo)

$40

or

$15 + 10 = $25 managed WordPress hosting on a digital ocean data center however is made better for WordPress by get flywheel.

Unfortunately, WP engine a very good company but much more expensive company does not have data centers close to you.

If you want to start with the base configuration of $15 you can add the CDN for just $10

if for whatever reason you need more they will just let you move to the higher plan.

One thing I do know about get flywheel is they give you more RAM as well as space the more you go up. So because they buy in bulk you would get 4 gigs of dedicated RAM the same for the same price as digital ocean the company that they have partnered with.

Essentially get flywheel is digital ocean but optimized like crazy for WordPress with auto backups every night you can click the button and go back to the day before no problem malware removal in scanning is free even on the base plan I know it says $50 but when I asked them they told me they are going to make it free across the board and have never charged anyone.

The ability to buy a CDN that in enterprise CDN which is what get flywheel has the reason I know this is Net DNA was the enterprise division of MaxCDN now it is just called Max CDN enterprise.

What I am getting at is $10 a month for a managed enterprise class content delivery network is a great deal. & NetDNA/MaxCDN enterprise is a very good CDN It would cost to $500 a month without being rolled into this package.

if you choose to not use

If you use them you can get very good pricing based please remember this is a big plus when a company charges a visit as a unique IP address every 24 hours. So if somebody comes to your site and checks out every page or bots check out every page you are not going to be charged for anything like that this is not true for many others that charge simply by page views which can be eaten by good and bad bots and are obviously going to be higher than real people unique visitors in 24 hours

You can request that the VPS created for you is based out of San Francisco because you want to have a data center close to you. The fact that they're not a Canadian company does not hurt you in any way shape or form.

Because you have a .ca Google will automatically understand that that is the region you wish to target.

Please watch the video here

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399

provide service from New York, San Francisco, and Amsterdam.

This allows you to select the best location based on latency, or available just go with getflywheel it is going to be extremely fast and You will love it.

[Web3Marketing87]

Thank you for all the tips!

Just to be clear, are you recommending using Digital Ocean in combination with a CDN?

What Managed WP hosting service were you referring to?

Thanks,

Anton

[Web3Marketing87]

Thanks,

I have read the lower article and implemented some fixes to reduce my ttfb.

As per the comments above, do you have a recommendation for a better host, or a good CDN?

Thanks,

Anton

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Anton,

We've done a lot of studies here at Moz and what we've found is this:

• There does seem to be a slight correlation between site speed and rankings (keep in mind that correlation is not causation)
• Our studies have not found a relationship between CDNs and higher rankings.

So the evidence would seem to suggest that CDNs can help your website speed, and it's possible to help your rankings, simply using a CDN by itself is no garentee.

The other answers here give you some fine tips for speeding up your site, so I'll stay out of the advice business. Some recommended reading from the Moz Blog

• http://moz.com/blog/15-tips-to-speed-up-your-website
• http://moz.com/blog/improving-search-rank-by-optimizing-your-time-to-first-byte

Hope this helps! Best of luck.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Do answer your question completely I'm sorry for so many different posts

The correct way to add CloudFlare is to use the plug-in

http://wordpress.org/plugins/cloudflare/

I still would not use it

EdgeCast CDN for $20 a month

http://mediatemple.net/webhosting/procdn/

or

MaxCDN

http://www.maxcdn.com/

You would have to add the cost on to what is really bad hosting

I would move to manage WordPress if you do not again I would look at DigitalOcean or Linode

They're both excellent hosting companies.

CDN info

http://www.cdn-advisor.com/

[BlueprintMarketing]

PS

http://cloudproxy.sucuri.net/features

Is a good service as far as speed up your website as well. It will all to do a knockout job in securing the site.

Managed WordPress Will do this already so I would still go with them

You can ask for a Canadian IP not that it's important because you have a .ca domain however this is a good way to speed up your site I do not like CloudFlare much to be up only honest with you.

Running a speed test out of Montréal Canada shows me that your site is about as optimized as it's going to get without adding a content of every network or changing your hosting company something I would strongly recommend doing.

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140105_H8_2Y6/

Useing this company at home he $15 a month you can get a dedicated VPS me name you're the only person on the virtual server with your own dedicated IP address and they will migrate your site over for free. This would be the best way to test what is going to work and what's not going to work.

They also allow you to add a CDN on for only $10 a month. It's a good deal.

They use digital ocean and can put you on the West Coast or the East Coast or even Europe if you want.

Your site speed will go down dramatically as we can see in your web speed test your time to first bite which is something that Google actually counts is pretty bad even though you have done a good job of optimizing the website.

http://getflywheel.com/pricing/

Sincerely,

Thomas

[BlueprintMarketing]

Your on "UNIFIEDLAYER" AKA Bluehost

I would strongly recommend changing hosting companies bluehost is the worst of the worst

Here's some very good information on how to speed up your site if you follow what is done in this you can save some money on hosting but you still will do better with a five dollar a month VPS with SSDs on digital Ocean than you ever will with Bluehost

You can then add these tips along with the content delivery network.

Please remember I strongly recommend you use a managed or WordPress hosting company

They allow you to have an expert in hosting as well as WordPress 24/7 and are significantly faster Then hosting that you're on now.

Follow some of the things are commended in this if you want to tweak your own server however I would let experts do it

http://www.feedthebot.com/pagespeed/

I think the worst situation is that you're on a hosting companies that is definitely the type of company that slow your website down on purpose or allow other people on the same server to use more resources than you. It's really not the way to go.

Pressable Pagely & Getflywheeel I'll have excellent reseller programs in fact everyone of them does.

Sincerely

Tom

[BlueprintMarketing]

CDN's

Can make your website much faster.

For instance you have a site right now that is very light meaning it's under 1MB

I have clients that are based in Canada and I would use and managed to WordPress hosting company

They will take care of any speed issues and I can see you're currently running Apache your test scores aren't bad but you can definitely do better

http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/YI6mS/http://www.edmontonweb.ca/

a better look

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140105_H8_2Y6/

GetFlywheel.com , WebSynthesis.com , WPEngine.com , Pressable.com , Pagely.com & Presslabs.com

Are all outstanding companies if you want to have the lowest price get flywheel Will give you very fast hosting at $15 a month.

If you want to speed up your current website the CDN I would recommend his http://www.edgecast.com/

They

Have Google page speed built-in to their content delivery network you can add the CDN through all of the companies I've listed above however Pressable

Offers you a Standard high-quality content delivery network with Google page speed on all sights.

WebSynthesis Is now offering Google Page speed a is well

By first recommendation would be going with managed is WordPress hosting

You can use A server from either linode.com or DigitalOcean.com

To make a very fast website use Nginx over Apache it is much faster and uses far less memory

For content delivery networks and on how much you want to spend but I like EdgeCast & MaxCDN

If you use the EdgeCast ADN  You will have google page speed already built in to your sight

I'm going to take a look at where you're hosted now and post some more information in the second

Sincerely,

Thomas