CDN for SEO (or not)?
-
Does CDN impact on SEO or not?
There seems conflicting ideas as to whether they impact positively or negatively, I realise that if the page loads quicker this is a good thing for SEO and usability of course.
Does Google see CDN as just cheating and a get-around for not doing the work from the ground up and using good hosting etc?
Do you have any direct experience?
All constructive input much appreciated!
-
Thank you, Dirk.
I always enjoy getting explicit answers from people who I have grown to trust.
Thanks!
-
I doubt that Google is seeing using a CDN as cheating - it is one of the factors which helps increasing the speed of the site and increase user experience. It would be an ideal world if you could get a 100% score on Pagespeed Insights and all A scores on webpagetest.org - but you have to start somewhere, and adding a CDN is normally one of the easier things to do. So it's certainly not cheating - rather taking a step in the good direction.
Apart from that, Google is offering a CDN itself (https://cloud.google.com/dns/docs).
rgds,
Dirk
-
Hi Egol,
You can mask the url of the CDN behind your own url - so rather than displaying d3vam04na8c92l.cloudfront.net/imagename.jpg (the example is Cloudfront but it's possible for most CDN's) it could be something like images.mysite.com/imagename.jpg - so links to these pages would still be beneficial to your domain rather than the cdn.
Dirk
-
I like the answer given by Nitin. I agree with the speed benefits and that has tempted me to consider CDNs.
I also have a question to toss out....
Let's imagine that I have a site with very popular images or very popular pdf, ppt, doc, etc files. If those are on my domain then google can easily see that popular images in image search are associated with my domain. Also if people embed my images or hotlink my images or link to my pdf ppt doc, etc files then google can see that activity and popularity is associated with my domain.
Many sites have enormous investments beyond typical webpages. Google does rank pdf ppt doc etc files. They accumulate pagerank and have the ability to pass link benefits. In addition, they can build brand mention popularity, as an example, people can say... "Look at this great photo on egol.com" and that mention, I believe, can provide ranking benefit, advertising value for your domain. If people who find your image or other document instead say... "Look at this great photo on xyz123cdn.com" then that strips those benefits from my domain. It strips type-in traffic from my domain.
Does anyone know of any testing or statements from Google that address how image and information files work when used on CDN.
-
Hi,
Generally, people advice to use CDN for serving static content very fast on your site, that helps you improve your page speed and hence, there it adds value from SEO & UX perspective.
Now, the definition of CDN will help you understand how exactly it can help you improve your page speed. So, here you go:
"A CDN is essentially a network of geographically dispersed servers. Each CDN node (also called Edge Servers) caches the static content of a site like the images, CSS/JS files and other structural components. The majority of an end-user's page load time is spent on retrieving this content, and so it makes sense to provide these "building blocks" of a site in as many server nodes as possible, distributed throughout the world.
When a user requests your site, the node closest in proximity to user will deliver the static content, ensuring the shortest distance for the data to travel (reduced latency), therefore providing the fastest site experience."
Also, check the attached image to understand it well. Hope this helps
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do I need multiple 301s to preserve SEO
Many years ago I created website www.original.com. Two years ago I redirected website www.original to www.neworiginal.comusing 301 redirects. I have now created www.rebranded.com. I want to maintain all SEO value. Should I redirect both www.original.comand www.new original.com to www.rebranded.com? Or do I only need to redirect one of them and if only one which one? If I need only to redirect one can I delete the other, why or why not. Of course the url are fictitious. I truly appreciate your help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PhotoStl0 -
URL structure for SEO
Hi Mozzers, I have a site which is a combination of product pages, and news and advice pages that relate to the products. How would you approach the URL structure for this, following SEO best practice? Approach 1 Product pages:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A_Q
www.website.com/product-category/product-page News and advice pages:
www.website.com/product-category/product-page/news-and-advice-story-1
www.website.com/product-category/product-page/news-and-advice-story-2
etc or Approach 2 Product pages:
www.website.com/product-category/product-page News and advice pages:
www.website.com/news/product-category/news-and advice-story-1 (with internal linking to relevant product page)
www.website.com/news/product-category/news-and advice-story-2 (with internal linking to relevant product page)
etc Or would a different approach be better?0 -
Website Migration and SEO
Recently I migrated three websites from www.product.com to www.brandname.com/product. Two of these site are performing as normal when it comes to SEO but one of them lost half of its traffic and dropped in rankings significantly. All pages have been properly redirected, onsite SEO is intact and optimized, and all pages are indexed by Search engines. Has anyone had experience with this type of migration that could give some input on what a possible solution could be? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexVelazquez0 -
Blog home page and SEO
Why do most blog owners not put content that is unique to the home page above the fold before posts begin?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
How do you Hire someone for SEO?
What questions do you ask when hiring an SEO person? What is the most important thing in selecting a company for SEO? Should they be able to make recommendations on changes in your website for seo?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Realtor1010 -
SEO Tools
Anyone have any experience and thoughts about the woo rank website and seo tool?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | casper4341 -
How to create SEO budget?
If I see the site which has 8,000 links from unique domains (RDD in Market Samurai). How much could it cost to build such amount of links? How long does it take? What SEO budget will be based on these data?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rboychuk0 -
SEO Feedback Please
Hi, I was hoping to get some feedback on this site's SEO: http://www.chantre.com/ I also have different URLs which can be accessed from the left side of the site under "Quick Search Links" that go to the different offices within this company. Thoughts on how to improve would be great. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gXe0