Adding Your Domain to Cloudflare CDN

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March 08, 2021
Hey members, In this article we will se How to Connect Our domain with cloud delivery network or Cloudflare which is used by a lot number of users. There are also a lot users who even don't know about such technologies but you don't have to worry because I'm here to share such techs with You.

First, We should understand about Cloudflare, it's benefits, then how to connect this with Domain.

What is CloudFlare ?

It is web performance and security company that makes websites load faster and make them resist abusive bots and crawlers. The company accomplishes this task by routing the traffic of registered website though its smart global network of CloudFlare servers.

Why Clouflare - 

Cloudflare is a service which, among other things, provides a CDN (Content Delivery Network), firewall, and performance layer for your website. 
  1. Cloudflare has some mega servers which cache your static assets for you, once they have been requested once.
  2. Along with the asset caching, Cloudflare has a worldwide Content Delivery Network. With this, your cached asset gets replicated across servers in over 200 cities worldwide.
  3. Along with the caching and CDN, Cloudflare helps protect your site against brute-force attacks and threats against your website. Cloudflare has the advantage of serving over 12 million websites and so can identify malicious bots and users more easily than any operating system firewall. 
  4. On the topic of security, when using Cloudflare you can share your account with us without sharing your login details.
  5. This is a slightly nerdy one, but the DNS management within Cloudflare is excellent, and can be controlled via an API. DNS records are like driving directions for your browser. When you enter your domain name, the DNS records tell your browser where to go to get to their destination.


    All of the features above come with the free (yes, free) Cloudflare account. If you decide to upgrade to Pro (or even Business), this unlocks a whole host of features including:
  • Image optimization
  • Next-gen delivery 
  • More page rules
  • Better security

How would you set up Cloudflare?

To setup  Clouflare  for your Domain, you have to follow the steps given further.

Step 1: Creating a Cloudflare Account

  • Navigate to the Cloudflare website and click the Sign Up button in order to create an account.
  • Provide your email and password and then hit Create Account.

Step 2: Adding Domain Name to Cloudflare

  • Go to your Cloudflare dashboard. Select the +Add Site button below a notification that reads “You currently don’t have any websites.”
  • Now, select your plan. If it’s for a personal site, we recommend you to choose the free plan. Otherwise, choose the Pro or Business plan for business websites.

Step 3: Checking the DNS Records of Your Domain Name in Cloudflare

In this step, you can enable or disable Cloudflare for specific subdomains.
To activate, simply toggle the cloud to orange.(proxied)
We highly suggest that you enable Cloudflare for your naked domain name and www subdomain. This way, Cloudflare will work on both www and non-www versions of your site.

Once you are done, press the Continue button to proceed to the next step.

Step 4: Pointing Your Domain Name to Cloudflare Nameservers

Now go to your domain registrar website and login to your account
  • Now look for Manage DNS
  • Replace the existing nameservers with those from Cloudflare. Don’t forget to click Update.
  • Go back to the Cloudflare page and press the Done, check nameservers button.


Now it may take upto 24hours but mostly it gets connected within 10 Minutes.

After you log in to the Cloudflare plugin, you will see several settings:
  • Optimize Cloudflare for WordPress — enable it by clicking the “Apply” button. It will implement Cloudflare recommended settings for the best performance.
  • Purge Cache — activate this service only after you update your WordPress or website design. This setting will clear all the cached content of your site.
  • Automatic Cache Management — automatically clear all Cloudflare cache every time you switch or edit the theme.

Conclusion

CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is an important service that will help you boost your website speed. Out of so many options, we recommend you to use Cloudflare. It offers a reliable CDN service, as well as security and performance improvements.