CDN Setup Guide Afdrukken

The Problem

Your website loads slowly for visitors outside Eastern Europe. Every image, stylesheet, and JavaScript file travels from our Sofia datacenter to Sydney, Los Angeles, or Singapore. That's 200-500ms of unnecessary latency per request.

Real numbers from actual ArkHost clients:

• Australian visitor loading Sofia-hosted site: 2.8 seconds
• Same visitor after CDN: 0.9 seconds
• That's 68% faster. Measured, not estimated.

What this costs you:

• Google penalizes slow sites (Core Web Vitals directly affect ranking)
• Amazon's research: every 100ms delay = 1% lost sales
• Your server wastes resources serving the same logo.png thousands of times
• You're paying for bandwidth that's completely avoidable

What CDN Actually Does

Content Delivery Network = 114 servers worldwide that cache your static files.

How it works:

1. First visitor from Sydney requests your logo
2. Sydney edge server doesn't have it, fetches from Sofia (slow, once)
3. Sydney edge caches it for 7 days
4. Next 10,000 Sydney visitors get it in 20ms instead of 400ms

What gets cached:

• Images: .jpg, .png, .gif, .webp, .svg
• CSS/JS: All stylesheets and scripts
• Fonts: .woff, .woff2, .ttf
• Static files: PDFs, ZIPs

What stays dynamic (never cached):

• PHP pages
• Database queries
• User sessions
• Shopping carts
• Contact form submissions

Your Free CDN

Included with Web Starter, Web Plus, and Web Pro packages. No trial period, no setup fees. Uses BunnyCDN's infrastructure - we pay per TB so you don't have to.

Bandwidth: Fair use policy applies. If you're serving terabytes monthly, we'll contact you to discuss options. Normal websites never hit this.

Activation: 5 Minutes

Step 1: Find Your Service

1. Log into client area
2. Services → My Services
3. Click your Web Starter/Plus/Pro package
4. Scroll to "CDN Service" section

Step 2: Fill the Form

Origin URL: Your actual website

• Example: https://yourdomain.com
• Or staging: https://staging.yourdomain.com

Custom Hostname: Optional but recommended

• Use: cdn.yourdomain.com
• Looks professional vs yoursite.b-cdn.net

Enable SSL: Check the box

• Required if your site uses HTTPS (it should)

Step 3: Click Activate

System creates your CDN zone immediately. Note the values shown - you need them next.

Step 4: Add DNS (Custom Hostname Only)

Add this CNAME record:

Type: CNAME
Name: cdn
Value: yoursite.b-cdn.net.
TTL: 3600

Where to add:

• ArkHost DNS: Domains → your domain → DNS Management
• External (Cloudflare etc): Their DNS panel

Important: If using Cloudflare, turn OFF the orange cloud for this record. CDN + CDN = broken setup.

DNS propagates in 5-60 minutes. Check status at whatsmydns.net.

If DNS check fails after 60 minutes:

• Verify CNAME value exactly matches yoursite.b-cdn.net. (note the trailing dot)
• Check DNS propagation at whatsmydns.net
• Contact support if still broken

Step 5: Update Your Website

Manual HTML:

<!-- Before -->
<img src="/images/logo.png">

<!-- After -->
<img src="https://cdn.yourdomain.com/images/logo.png">

WordPress: See next section.

WordPress Integration

Option 1: WP Fastest Cache (Recommended)

1. Install WP Fastest Cache (free)
2. WP Fastest Cache → CDN tab
3. Enable Custom CDN
4. Origin URL: Your site (https://yourdomain.com)
5. CDN URL: Your CDN (https://cdn.yourdomain.com)
6. Select file types: images, CSS, JS, fonts
7. Save

Done. Plugin handles everything automatically.

Option 2: CDN Enabler

1. Install CDN Enabler (free, by KeyCDN)
2. Settings → CDN Enabler
3. CDN URL: cdn.yourdomain.com (no https://)
4. Check: Include images/CSS/JavaScript
5. Save

Option 3: Manual (functions.php)

function arkhost_cdn_rewrite($content) {
    $cdn_url = 'https://cdn.yourdomain.com';
    $site_url = get_site_url();
    
    // Only rewrite wp-content and wp-includes
    $content = str_replace($site_url . '/wp-content/', $cdn_url . '/wp-content/', $content);
    $content = str_replace($site_url . '/wp-includes/', $cdn_url . '/wp-includes/', $content);
    
    return $content;
}
add_filter('the_content', 'arkhost_cdn_rewrite');
add_filter('wp_get_attachment_url', 'arkhost_cdn_rewrite');

Managing Your CDN

View Status

Client Area → Manage CDN (top menu)

Shows:

• Your CDN URL
• SSL status (green = active)
• Origin configuration
• Usage statistics

Purge Cache

When you update files:

1. Manage CDN page
2. Click "Purge Cache"
3. Confirm

This clears ALL cached files. Next request refetches from origin.

When to purge:

• Updated CSS/JS
• New images
• After theme updates

Don't purge hourly. Cache needs time to work. Constant purging means your origin server handles all requests - zero CDN benefit.

Statistics

Click "View Statistics" to see: