By: Brad Litwin<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s how to set up Cloudflare for your website in three steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See below for detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one likes a slow website \u2013 that much is obvious. The problem is that there are a lot of things that can cause your site to feel sluggish. This means it might take a while to\u00a0find a solution\u00a0that speeds everything up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it comes to optimizing your site\u2019s performance, however, not many solutions come close to Content Delivery Networks (CDNs). Simply put, CDNs use a decentralized system of servers around the globe to display your website far faster than most hosting providers can. They are not a hosting solution per se, just a middleman between you and your visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article, we\u2019ll introduce you to Cloudflare<\/a>, one of our favorite CDNs. Then we\u2019ll teach you how to enable it for your website in three simple steps. Let\u2019s get to work on improving those loading times!<\/p>\n\n\n\n An Introduction to Cloudflare<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Cloudflare<\/a>, like most\u00a0Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), is essentially a network of servers spread out across the globe. When you set up Cloudflare to work with your website, it saves copies of your pages to its servers, which is known as caching. Whenever someone tries to access your site, Cloudflare displays one of those copies from the server closest\u00a0to their location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why Cloudflare is capable of serving content much faster than a regular web host. After all, it doesn\u2019t have to fully \u2018render\u2019 your website each time someone visits \u2013 it just has to deliver it from storage. The platform also offers additional helpful features, such as protection against Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and spikes in traffic, analytics tools, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all CDNs offer this many extra options, which is part of the reason for Cloudflare\u2019s popularity. You can also sign up to the platform for free to take advantage of its optimization capabilities, DDoS protection, and even Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates. This plan only supports up to three pages, but it\u2019s a solid deal for small websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key Features:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Price:<\/strong> Cloudflare offers a free plan<\/a> that supports up to three pages and provides you with access to its CDN network. Professional plans start at $20 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How to Enable Cloudflare on Your Website (In 3 Steps)<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have one of our cPanel Hosting accounts, you can actually turn on CloudFlare right from with your cPanel control panel. It\u2019s quick and couldn\u2019t be much easier to take advantage of all of the benefits available. Even if you don\u2019t have a cPanel plan, CloudFlare can still be easy to setup. Follow these easy step-by-step instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 1: Create a Cloudflare Account and Add Your Website<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n First, navigate to the Cloudflare homepage and click on the\u00a0Sign Up\u00a0<\/em>button\u00a0at the top of the screen. On the next page, type in your email address and password:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Cloudflare will ask you to enter the URL for the site you want to link your account to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cloudflare will then start analyzing your Domain Name Server (DNS) records. The service needs to update them so it can route visitors to its own servers whenever necessary. This is a simple and automatic process, so you\u2019ll just need to wait for a moment. Click on Continue <\/em>when it\u2019s done, and move on to the next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 2: Update Your Domain Name Servers and Choose a Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the next screen, Cloudflare will display a list of the DNS records associated with your domain name. You\u2019ll find a Cloudflare icon (an orange cloud with an arrow behind it) next to each record, as seen below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n By default, Cloudflare will enable the option to route traffic to your domain through its servers. You can toggle off this option by clicking on the icon. However, doing this means you\u2019ll lose out on the platform\u2019s features, so this is an option to leave on until you want to switch CDNs or disable the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For now, click Continue <\/em>once more. On the next screen, you\u2019ll be able to choose which plan you want. We recommend starting with the free tier until you\u2019ve decided you\u2019re happy with the service. You can upgrade to a premium plan at any time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cloudflare will now provide you with new nameservers for your domain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You will need to add these manually. This is necessary, because Cloudflare can\u2019t just take over your DNS records automatically. Otherwise, people would be able to sign you up for the service against your will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To do this, you\u2019ll need to log into the web host or registrar where you signed up for your domain. How you go about this will depend on your registrar\u2019s setup. For example, if you\u00a0bought your domain\u00a0through our service, you\u2019ll simply need to log into your account and click on the\u00a0Manage\u00a0<\/em>button next to the domain you want to update:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look for the option to edit your nameservers. In this case, it\u2019s called Custom Nameservers<\/em>. After choosing it, you just have to add the nameservers into the corresponding fields, and save your changes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re not sure how this process works for your registrar or web host, check out their documentation or contact support. Chances are it\u2019s simple, but it can be tricky to find the right settings if you\u2019ve never done this before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Step 3: Review Your Cloudflare Security Settings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At this stage, Cloudflare is up and ready to go. Each time you log into the platform, you\u2019ll see a dashboard displaying the status of the service and the details for your linked domain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ll notice that one of the sections above is called Security Level<\/em>. This is one of Cloudflare\u2019s most interesting settings, and it\u2019s worth looking at in a bit more detail. By default, your Cloudflare security is set to Medium<\/em>, which means that the platform will automatically route \u2018bad\u2019 traffic to a challenge page (a type of CAPTCHA) to weed out bots:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you think this setting isn\u2019t right for your site, you can lower or raise the security level at will. You have full control over your configuration, so be sure to check out Cloudflare\u2019s documentation to see what every option does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Using a CDN\u00a0is an excellent solution for most websites. If you want to speed up your loading times and protect your site from security breaches, a CDN can help you tackle both tasks. Plus, with\u00a0Cloudflare,\u00a0you get access to a free plan you can use on any website, which you can upgrade if you ever need more features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you have any questions about how to enable Cloudflare for your website? Let\u2019s talk about them in the comments section below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Original: https:\/\/www.a2hosting.com\/blog\/enable-cloudflare\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Brad Litwin Here\u2019s how to set up Cloudflare for your website in three steps: Create a Cloudflare account and add your site. Update your domain name servers and choose a plan. Review your Cloudflare security settings. See below for detail. No one likes a slow website \u2013 that much is obvious. The problem is Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,5,9,15,178],"tags":[181,182,183],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apache","category-linux","category-networks","category-windows-servers","category-wordpress","tag-cdn","tag-cloudflare","tag-content-delivery-network"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/SUMMALAI.COM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}