I recently discovered a new web service that has changed my blogs and particularly my niche sites which earn income from affiliate sales. Special thanks to my good blogging friend Jeevan Jacob John who introduced me to CloudFlare, (You can find him and his blog at techpupil.com or follow him on twitter @techpupil, I know he’ll appreciate it.)
An Overview of CloudFlare
The service is CloudFlare. The essence of CloudFlare is simple: to protect and accelerate any website. Sign up for an account, have your web traffic routed through CloudFlare’s intelligent global network and watch the spectacular results. Now I must say making a decision to route my traffic through a 3rd party service was incredibly challenging. Being all to aware of security and privacy threats I was especially cautious when it came to making a choice to point my websites DNS elsewhere.
CloudFlare is no joke and the results of utilizing their service has been nothing short of amazing. CloudFlare automatically optimizes the delivery of your web pages so that your site visitors get the absolute fastest page load times and optimal performance. In addition and a magnificent add-on is that CloudFlare blocks threats and limits abusive bots and crawlers from wasting your bandwidth and server resources. The bottom line is sites that are powered by CloudFlare will always see a significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other types of site attacks.
Anyone that owns their own domain can utilize the services of CloudFlare. It took me less than 5 minutes to setup my first niche site with CloudFlare. The best news is that the primary features of CloudFlare are free, and of course there are pay services available for those who need extra features like real time reporting or SSL.
How Fast is Your Site Loading?
I regularly check the load speed of my websites with a service called Pingdom. Pingdom features a tool that tests the load time of all the elements on a page, and helps you find bottlenecks quickly and easily. The Full Page Test loads an entire HTML page (which includes all the page objects, images, CSS, JavaScripts, RSS, Flash and any frames). It accurately mimics the way a page is loaded by a web browser. Pingdom will show you the load time of all objects visually with time bars, and you can view those objects in load order. The bottom line for most webmasters is site load time. Being disappointed with the load time of some of my niche sites was for me the biggest motivator in trying out the services of CloudFlare.
Google announced in 2011 that they do look at and use site speed in their ranking algorithm (though Matt Cutts say it is not a huge factor. I suppose huge is a matter of subjective opinion???). You can see Matt briefly discussing this in a video here. If CloudFlare is effective at increasing site speed, and Google is taking site speed into consideration then you owe it to yourself to take advantage of a free service such as this.
CloudFlare Review, the results are in
I’ve been absolutely amazed at how well CloudFlare has worked for me in the first couple of weeks I’ve been running it. I initially tried it out on one of my niche sites just to see how well it would work. Being quickly impressed with both the ease of setup, and more importantly the positive results of running the service I quickly signed up all my websites including this my primary blog.
When I first directed my DNS name servers of one of my niche sites to point at CloudFlare I anxiously waited to see what the outcome may be. A week later I was quite impressed with the overall results. Though it is a small sample period and a site with minimal amount of traffic the effect of CloudFlare on the website was phenomenal. The first and most notable result was when comparing site load time to past tests. Using Pingdom’s site load time test I observed past tests showed this site loading slowly, including results of 15.98 seconds, 13.5 seconds, and 14.7 seconds. Tests in the last week are showing the following load times, 3.6 seconds, and 4.5 seconds! Astounding. CloudFlare informed me that in the first week I utilized the site I saved my website visitors a total of 6.7 hours and saved 102.6 MB of total bandwidth.
The niche site that I initially tested CloudFlare on has finally experienced some stabilization in rankings, instead of bouncing around obscenely and dealing with frustrating ongoing hosting issues (Server 500 errors), the site speed is up and google seems to like that… a lot! CloudFlare has done a fantastic job handling the site. Stabilized rankings mean dollars, and that’s a bottom line when it comes to niche sites. Since going to CloudFlare I’ve experienced a surge in traffic and sales due to the higher rankings I’m now getting from google.
In addition to all the fantastic CloudFlare features I’ve mentioned is the fact that in the event that your site goes offline, CloudFlare is able to serve up the latest cached version of your site to visitors. Ensuring that your site never fully goes off the map again.
Your thoughts on CloudFlare
Is this a service you would try? What are your thoughts. Do you trust this concept, and do you think it can catch on?
43 comments
Ray says:
Jul 5, 2011
I’ve had my eye on cloudflare for some time now. I have read over a lot of info on their website. Some of it is a little confusing though. I have read a lot of good things about their service. But, I’ve seen a few complaints too. Which is probably natural. It would be difficult to please everyone. I would like to increase speed and block some of the bad or unwanted traffic, without blocking the good legit traffic. I was thinking about doing something like you did. Test it out with one of my less popular, less important, and not used very much domains and see what happens. If it worked out and I was pleased add my other domains to the service. I just need to sit down and set it up when I get the time. But, based on your input and review I really need to sign up and get it done.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 5, 2011
Hey Ray. It’s so easy to delay on things like this online, there is just so much to do on the net, and so many things to take care of as blog / website owners. Remember CloudFlare will take you only a few minutes to setup, and thus far has proven WELL WORTH IT for my sites (and according to you, your site(s) as well). Set them all up! You’ll be glad you did.
Ray says:
Jul 8, 2011
Well I said the heck with it an went for it. I will continue testing for a week or so to see what happens, but in the last 24 hour cloudflare says I have saved 145mb for just one site. Hopefully it is accurate and is doing a good job with medium default setting. The site is definitely speedier. More testing needed, but thanks for pushing me into messing with it. One of those things I’ve been putting off. I look forward to 1 week stats to see what it says.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 8, 2011
I’m just utilizing their free service, and haven’t found any security level settings. It seems like its just a standard package. Or am I missing something? Is there somewhere I can make adjustments?
Jan Husdal says:
Jul 8, 2011
There should be a “Basic Security setting” in your CloudFlare Settings Dashboard, which has four levels: Off, Low, Medium and High. Not?
Jym | Blog Alchemy says:
Jul 5, 2011
I recently started using CloudFlare as well and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
It’s a great concept and very easy to install and configure. I hadn’t thought about this in terms of $$$’s but the connection is surely there – anything that helps us optimize effectively will lead to more consistent rankings thus more traffic and more income.
Nice review, I’ll be spreading the word like this myself sometime soon.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 5, 2011
Thanks Jym, glad I’m meeting a few people who agree with me on this one. 🙂 CloudFlare has been great, and I’ll continue recommending it as long as it is working well for me.
Jane | Blogging Tips says:
Jul 5, 2011
Cloudflare surely does wonders. I am on it for about 2 weeks and simply love the experience. The transition part was so smooth too.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 5, 2011
Hey Jane, glad to hear you are also a happy CloudFlare user! Congrats.
Brankica says:
Jul 5, 2011
Hey Daniel, I have heard of CF a while back but still didn’t set it up. I want to make sure the host I am using confirms that it is a good thing to do there, because I have read several people having problems with their blogs after starting with CF. They had a lot of downtime and stuff.
I have it on my to do list though and I might give it a go soon. Thanks for the review.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Hi Brankica. Good to see you, it’s been a while since we’ve connected! 🙂 … Good thing to do is to confirm with your host, I agree. I’ve experienced no downtime or complaints (so far), so I’m optimistic things are going well. There is a serious decrease in spam as well which is a major bonus.
Brankica says:
Jul 18, 2011
Just set it up, the host said it might take up to 48 hrs to start running it through CF but I can’t wait to see how it is going to work 🙂
Adam says:
Jul 5, 2011
Hi Daniel, I have never heard about Cloud Flare before and it seems like a really handy tool. I do experience sometimes some speed problems with my blog so maybe CF would be worthy to explore a bit more.
My only concern is the same as Brankica’s is this ok with hosts?
Thanks for bringing this up.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Glad I could share this with you then. It may be wise to check with your host, then again if you are using a large host I think you’ll almost definitely be okay. In any case the switch is not complex, and changing back is a snap if need be.
Paul says:
Jul 5, 2011
Thanks for the pingdom and cloudfare reference, both of which i have never heard of. I plan on spending some time and seeing how both of these resources can help me out.
thanks again.
Paul
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Two great tools right there Paul. Glad you found them and can make use of them! 🙂
A. Tatum Jr says:
Jul 5, 2011
Seems like a pretty good deal, but I do agree with you I would really have to think about running my traffic through everyone else. Do you think this is better than a cache plugin?
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Hey Alvin. I’ve used numerous cache plugins (and still do), but CloudFlare is significantly different and far more powerful. It is much better than any plugin one could get, since you are now teaming up with a community on a smart global network. Instead of running your blog exposed to the world it has a whole lot more protection and the speed improvements are very noticeable.
Damon Billian says:
Jul 5, 2011
“I would like to increase speed and block some of the bad or unwanted traffic, without blocking the good legit traffic. I was thinking about doing something like you did.”
Pretty easy to do this because we will block a lot of bad bots and the like. You also have the option of overriding any behavior due to false positives by whitelisting IPs & you can also adjust your security level settings to be less strict. More information here: http://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-threat-control-making-your-website
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
In just a few days of using CloudFlare on this blog there were dozens of spammers and botnets that were challenged by cloudflare. This kind of security has really quickly decreased a lot of the spam I’ve been getting here. Though spam is normally trapped by Akismet it still requires that extra click to delete (but not anymore!). Also knowing that various hackers and botnets are no longer able to access my site is a relief and a half. Thanks Damon and the CloudFlare team!
Jeevanjacobjohn says:
Jul 5, 2011
Hey Daniel,
Thank you for the mention! I am glad that you were able to make use of Cloud flare’s service. As you said, it will really improve the performance and reduce the bounce rate (by a lot!). I am also glad that the guys behind Cloud flare made it easy for us to install.
Anyways, thank you for the article. It will sure help the guys who haven’t heard about it, yet.
Jeevan Jacob John
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Hey Jeevan. No problem, glad I could offer you the shout out! The installation was a snap wasn’t it. Glad we can share this quality service together. Thanks bro.
Tom Drake says:
Jul 5, 2011
I think I’ll try CloudFlare out. I have it in a list of things I need to look into, but you’ve convinced me. I’ve already moved to a dedicated server as it is, I need the help!
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Hey Tom. Move it up on that list, make it a priority. CloudFlare is a very valuable for security and site speed you can’t go wrong! (PS. We all need the help) 🙂
Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com says:
Jul 5, 2011
Might be too quick to judge a surge amount of $$ as a result of using CloudFlare but speed is certainly being considered by Google
Make sure you set Security to Low though as I have a few visitors sent me messages through CloudFlare because they were thought as spammers/threats
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Hey Michael. I agree with you, but it makes for good copy. 🙂 Yes only time will show if the results are truly related. Thanks for the tip on Security, I will look into that for sure.
Lets improve your website performance with Cloudflare says:
Jul 5, 2011
[…] CloudFlare Review, how it sped up my site and made me money overnight […]
Jan Husdal says:
Jul 6, 2011
Hi Daniel and thank you for sharing your experiences. You may be interested to know that there is a competing service called Incapsula, which works in a similar manner. While CloudFlare seems geared towards performance and acceleration (and did a great job in that respect on my own blog), Incapsula is more oriented towards security, and has a lesser selection of options that can be toggled on or off. I should also mention that the security features that cost extra in CloudFlare (PRO at $20/mo) come for free in Incapsula. With security being first on my mind, and after testing both, I went with Incapsula :
http://www.husdal.com/2011/07/01/incapsula-versus-cloudflare/
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 6, 2011
Hey Jan, thanks for sharing about Incapsula here. I suspected there must be a few competitors out there for CloudFlare. Yeah security is certainly a priority, and perhaps more important than site speed for some. Thanks for the link to the article, I will take a look!
Ray says:
Jul 8, 2011
Good info on incapsula. I never heard of them until you mentioned them. I read your post on your site. They are worth checking out. Now I am torn between the two. I will first test cloudflare for a week or more and then I will look into incapsula to see if there is any noticeable difference. Thanks for sharing them and pointing them out being free is a plus too.
BigJoe says:
Dec 18, 2011
Hi Ian,
Which features are you referring to? I tried both ( the free version) few months ago and I decided to stay with CloudFlare. The pro version cost $20 and every site after that that you want to use the pro version cost $5. I’m using the pro version on 3 sites and all the other sites I have are on the basic version.
Nishadha says:
Jul 6, 2011
I have being hearing about this service for a while now and will definitely test this out with one of my niche sites. Thanks for sharing this information.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 7, 2011
Glad to offer information that leads to action Nishadha!
Toddjir says:
Jul 7, 2011
Hey Dan,
I’ve had CF on my site for a couple of months now. Load times have been good and all that. Today I decided to take it off and test out what happens without it. So far things seem ok in the first hour but I know this can change. I’ll keep you updated on what I find.
Daniel Snyder says:
Jul 8, 2011
Hey Todd, sounds interesting. You are one of the first people I’ve run into who has been utilizing it for a somewhat extended period of time thus far. Be curios to see what the results are without it. Of course I ran without it for years, and now adding it has brought improvements that I’m quite happy with.
Paul SAlmon says:
Jul 8, 2011
I have been using CloudFlare for some time and so far I haven’t had any real issues with it. There were some growing pains in the beginning, but they seem to be doing better at handling any issues they encounter.
I had disabled it for about two months recently because CloudFlare and my previous host didn’t play nice. I received errors when accessing my blog’s dashboard.
Since I have switched hosts I haven’t really had any issues when using CloudFlare, and enjoyed looking at my response time drop in Pingdom.
Follow Up on CloudFlare and the Impact on My Blog Traffic Stats says:
Jul 11, 2011
[…] what difference has CloudFlare made to the traffic to my blog? Here’s what the figures […]
Jason Mitchev says:
Jul 12, 2011
Anything that can speed up the loading of a site as well as the protection of it definitely needs a fair shake. I may have to look into that see if I can apply it for my needs. Thanks for the comprehensive review!
James says:
Jul 24, 2011
This is the very cool thing that I discover today.And I also set up for one of my niche site already.Honestly, CloudFlare it worth it and the best part is they are totally free.Anyway,thanks for your review.
Suresh Khanal@SEO MMO Tips says:
Sep 26, 2011
Hi Daniel,
Its a nice review on CloudFlare. I turned on the service for my blogs and truly wondered to see the number of attacks and risks it has blocked. Increased site loading speed is just a side-effect when the security is the true charm of this service.
John Garrett says:
Oct 16, 2011
Hey Daniel!
This is a great write-up. I have to sing-a-long with the others and say I’ve meant to do it but never pulled the trigger on it.
I can’t see any reason not to at least give it a shot, especially considering what there is to gain.
I was using smush.it to compress my images but still wasn’t gaining the speed increase I was hoping for so hopefully this will help. Thanks!
ByeVideo says:
Dec 14, 2011
I still dont understand why pingdom does this.. but cloudflare’s zipping methods are not good enough…
dXh says:
Dec 14, 2011
Google webmaster tools showed a avg of 3 sec increase in page load times on one clients site. My blogs seem to benefit some, but I notice the page may appear to load faster when it is not really loaded, some elements take 7-9 seconds to load. Google uses page load times in it’s algorithm so I decided to move off. I did like the security it offered.