Does a CDN affect search rankings?
-
I feel kind of stupid asking this, but if i use one it would speed things up quite a bit. It is for a ecommerce website, any guidance on this would be awesome!
-
Google officially said the site speed is a SEO factor which, when implemented, will affect 1% of SERP results. This gives some idea of the scope of it's relevancy. (not saying 1% is either high or low, this is all very subjective)
Having said that, beyond speed improvement, CDN provides other SEO related benefits.
I've actually just published a 2-part Blog post that investigates SEO & CDN related myths and talks about CDN and SEO benefits, I hope you`ll find it useful. it should answer all questions:
Part 1: SEO & CDN Myths
Part 2: SEO & CDN benefits -
I use a CDN and have never seen any impact on my SEO. As long as your HTML is served off your domain you're fine.
If you're using AWS Cloudfront you can set up a CNAME so that your content comes from, say, images.mydomain.com instead of xyz.cdn.com. Helps obscure it from visitors and looks a bit neater.
-
Using a properly configured CDN will not have any negative effects on SEO. It can have positive effects on your rankings by offering faster page loads.
With Google's current system, you would not see a SEO benefit per se. If your current site is deemed slow by Google, you could have your current speed penalty lifted.
Moving to a CDN will surely provide a better user experience. Google is constantly adjusting it's algorithms in chase of the best user experience, so this is a chance for you to get ahead of the game. It is reasonable to think in the future Google may consider site speed as a ranking factor.
Two other suggestions regarding setting up a CDN:
-
you need to be very conscious of your cache settings. You could make a change on your site and users will not see the change if you do not ensure that change is propagated throughout your CDN
-
try to include all files which would benefit from a CDN. I have seen some sites just add their videos and image files to the CDN. Custom Javascript, CSS files and so forth can all benefit from CDN. PageSpeed and YSlow are two great tools for optimizing page loading times.
-
-
As far as I know, the urls of your additional resources such as images, css, and scripts shouldn't affect your SEO either way.
-
But, does the use of a Content Delivery Network (cdn) itself affect seo? For example my pics / code will be hosted differently. Just kind of confusing to me since I'm used to URL structure being: mydomain.com/images/pic.jpg instead of xyz.cdn.com/2523/myname/pic.jpg. Is this even something to be concerned about?
-
Site speed is only relevant when your site is extremely slow. Google doesn't penalize you unless your page load time is excessively long. You won't get a boost in rankings by speeding up your site.
With that in mind, Site load times do affect your user experience, so you may notice a lower bounce rate, more pages per visit, and possibly a higher conversion rate.
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
-
Wrong Page Ranking?!?
I did some research today, one of our keywords is "mobile column lifts." I recently redid a page on our website to target this keyword. When I Google search this keyword I see that a page on our site titled "Reconditioned Mobile Lifts" is ranking for this keyword. I took a look with Moz, our mobile column lifts page ranks 90 for the keyword, and the reconditioned lifts page ranks 73 the keyword. Why is this happening? How can I fix this? https://www.slec.com/mobile-column-lifts/ https://www.slec.com/reconditioned-mobile-lifts/
Technical SEO | | slecinc0 -
Desktop Ranking Disappeared After URL Change; Mobile Ranking Improved
A client's developer moved a site onto a new (WordPress) CMS, where the only change was URLs - the front end code stayed the same. The site is 10+ years old and previously had fantastic rankings (#1-4) with inner pages for some relatively generic search phrases (eg 10,000 searches / month in the UK, per Keyword Planner). Now, on Desktop searches the site isn't appearing anywhere in the 300+ results for a key search phrase, where it used to rank between #2-4; however over the last 3 weeks on Mobile the site ranks better than before, even though the site isn't at all mobile-friendly (it's over 10 years old). During the move, there were some errors by their developer: mistakenly left in a sitewide rel=canonical tag referring to the homepage 3-4 301s before finally reaching new URLs a lot of 301s missed (250+ crawl errors appeared in Search Console) page content differentiation by parameter, instead of individual URLs For example, the page that used to rank for the targeted phrase, this left 4 different URLs indexed, with the same content. To tackle this, we have so far: put in correct rel=canonical tags set up Search Console to recognise URL parameter as differentiating content fixed all crawl errors appearing in Search Console added a link direct to the problem page, direct from the homepage stopped duplicate content being indexed (including for the page in question) ensured the page load speed is still good (< 0.75s) Ranking for Desktop over Mobile would make sense, but not Mobile over Desktop! I'd really appreciate any advice on how to tackle this. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | magicdust0 -
Website dropping in ranking
Hello My website is www.invitationsforless.ie and on google Ireland it was ranking no 6 for the keyword "wedding invitations" and I was doing quite well from this but it has now has moved down along the rankings to no 10 and I have gone from the first page on google to the second page which is very disappointing. I did recently change the blurb on my homepage - would this have effected it. Please help I don't know what to do Thanks Linda
Technical SEO | | invitationsforless0 -
Changing .nl to .eu impact on rankings?
Hi all, I have 2 questions concerning the merge of two websites of ours.
Technical SEO | | MarikeP
We would like to combine our .nl and .be website to one big .eu website. Both websites have dutch and english rankings in The Netherlands and Belgium. 1. Will the rankings change because of the domain change to .eu?
2. Will the rankings in both countries change because of the merge? I hope somebody can help me, Greetings0 -
Ranking Internationally
Whats the best URL strategy to rank for one term in different countries? We currently rank well in Australia, but are tackling many countries over the next few months. The page I am ranking is http://www.spendbitcoins.com/buy for the term 'buy bitcoins' or 'buy bitcoins in Australia' (replace Australia with each specific country, i.e. New Zealand, Japan, etc.) These are the strategies I have come up with, is one of these good or is there a different better way? Use country specific TLDs, pulling the content from the same site w/ translations Use country specific TLDs and create separate sites and create completely original content Use country specific TLDs, forwarding to the primary domain use a subdomain from the same site modify the page link to be something like spendbitcoins.com/buy/new-zealand Don't worry about any of this and just get links from sites with the proper TLD
Technical SEO | | jaychristopher0 -
Varicose Veins Just Not Ranking
Buonjourno from 6 degrees C damn cold wetherby UK 🙂 This page http://www.varicoseveinsurgery.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/ has remained stubbornly out of the Google rankings for target term "Varicose Veins" Heres what Ive done so far:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
1. Made sure the HTML is optimised for the target term
2. Linked from the home page via a scrolling footer Now i'm not looking for a page 1 result but I'm curious to know why the term hasnt even touched the unexplored backwaters of even page 3. p.s If there is a canonical problem please tell me how you diagnosed that 🙂 Thanks in advance, David NB - Just spotted this page can be access via 2 different URLS (Uppercase W being the difference) http://www.varicoseveinsurgery.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/
http://www.varicoseveinsurgery.com/varicose-veins/What-are-they/0 -
Why is this site ranking better than me
Hi just used the compare tool to try and find out why a site is ranking better than me http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons?site=www.lifestylemonthly.co.uk%2F my site is www.in2town.co.uk and the site i am comparing with is http://www.lifestylemonthly.co.uk/ Can anyone explain what is going on and how i can achieve better ranking results
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Why sudden change in rankings?
I have been working on a domain for site which has only been up for a few months. I have mainly been working on building trust and authority for the site, with only a few links to my keyword phrases, which I was saving for the end, and concentrating on good quality non-spammy type links. It was progressing nicely until last weekend when I went from the first page on Google to the 3rd and 4th pages. Was there some kind of update?
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0