Free Viking CDN
It’s been a busy start to 2020 for us: a new CDN, File Manager and more.
Our free content delivery network makes your website load quickly, wherever your users are. It includes a suite of speed-boosting features that will accelerate your website
Read on for more details.
The Viking CDN is live, and free for all Viking customers.
Our Content Delivery Network will cache website files at data centres around the world. By having copies of your site at the network edge, it means that sites will load faster in countries outside the UK.
It also adds an extra level of reliability: visitors’ requests will have fewer network ‘hops’ to go through, so in the event of an internet disruption they’re more likely to arrive at a working website.
How a CDN works
A Content Distribution Network (CDN) is all about making a website load faster for all users, wherever they are in the world.
This is done by storing (caching) copies of your website on servers at the network edge.
For example, if your website is hosted at a UK data centre, there might be a delay if you try to access that site from the USA. So a copy of your website is stored on a server closer to the user, called a Point of Presence (POP).
Multiple copies of your site’s data is stored at different POPs throughout the world, so your site will load faster in remote places. Your users will navigate your site more efficiently, wherever they are.
While it’s good for users, it also helps your website in other ways. Search engines love fast-loading sites so there’s an SEO benefit to having a CDN.
Same features as paid CDNs
We also include a powerful Website Acceleration Suite (included free in all website hosting and WordPress hosting packages), which optimises sites to reduce their bandwidth. This will help them load faster, wherever they are in the world. It does this by optimising images and code, with over 40 options to improve your site speed.
Of course, not everyone wants to experiment with all these features, so we’ve created a safe and simple preset: ‘One-Click Optimisation‘. We encourage you to make a note of your pagespeed score – before and after turning it on.
Having a faster site will make your users – especially mobile users – more engaged with the site. It also has search engine performance benefits, and reduces data costs to both individuals and the environment.
To get the same options on a Cloudflare CDN, you’d have to pay for their $20/month package. That’s great value!
You can start using the CDN now by Managing hosting in your control panel.