Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Does a CDN affect search rankings?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Does a CDN affect search rankings?

    Technical SEO
    5
    7
    10345
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Hyrule
      Hyrule last edited by

      I feel kind of stupid asking this, but if i use one it would speed things up quite a bit. It is for a ecommerce website, any guidance on this would be awesome!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Igal_Zeifman
        Igal_Zeifman last edited by

        Google officially said the site speed is a SEO factor which, when implemented, will affect 1% of SERP results. This gives some idea of the scope of it's relevancy. (not saying 1% is either high or low, this is all very subjective)

        Having said that, beyond speed improvement, CDN provides other SEO related benefits.

        I've actually just published a 2-part Blog post that investigates SEO & CDN related myths and talks about CDN and SEO benefits, I hope you`ll find it useful. it should answer all questions:

        Part 1: SEO & CDN Myths
        Part 2: SEO & CDN benefits

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • Highland
          Highland @Hyrule last edited by

          I use a CDN and have never seen any impact on my SEO. As long as your HTML is served off your domain you're fine.

          If you're using AWS Cloudfront you can set up a CNAME so that your content comes from, say, images.mydomain.com instead of xyz.cdn.com. Helps obscure it from visitors and looks a bit neater.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • RyanKent
            RyanKent last edited by

            Using a properly configured CDN will not have any negative effects on SEO. It can have positive effects on your rankings by offering faster page loads.

            With Google's current system, you would not see a SEO benefit per se. If your current site is deemed slow by Google, you could have your current speed penalty lifted.

            Moving to a CDN will surely provide a better user experience. Google is constantly adjusting it's algorithms in chase of the best user experience, so this is a chance for you to get ahead of the game. It is reasonable to think in the future Google may consider site speed as a ranking factor.

            Two other suggestions regarding setting up a CDN:

            • you need to be very conscious of your cache settings. You could make a change on your site and users will not see the change if you do not ensure that change is propagated throughout your CDN

            • try to include all files which would benefit from a CDN. I have seen some sites just add their videos and image files to the CDN. Custom Javascript, CSS files and so forth can all benefit from CDN. PageSpeed and YSlow are two great tools for optimizing page loading times.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • brycebertola
              brycebertola @Hyrule last edited by

              As far as I know, the urls of your additional resources such as images, css, and scripts shouldn't affect your SEO either way.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Hyrule
                Hyrule @brycebertola last edited by

                But, does the use of a Content Delivery Network (cdn) itself affect seo? For example my pics / code will be hosted differently. Just kind of confusing to me since I'm used to URL structure being: mydomain.com/images/pic.jpg instead of xyz.cdn.com/2523/myname/pic.jpg. Is this even something to be concerned about?

                brycebertola Highland 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • brycebertola
                  brycebertola last edited by

                  Site speed is only relevant when your site is extremely slow. Google doesn't penalize you unless your page load time is excessively long. You won't get a boost in rankings by speeding up your site.

                  With that in mind, Site load times do affect your user experience, so you may notice a lower bounce rate, more pages per visit, and possibly a higher conversion rate.

                  Hyrule 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • vaskrupp

                    Website ranking declined after connecting to CDN

                    Hi! We are trying to rank https://windowmart.ca for various local search terms. Our head office is in Edmonton where we try to rank https://windowmart.ca/edmonton-windows-doors/ for such terms as "windows Edmonton", "replacement windows Edmonton", "windows and doors Edmonton" as well as others. The website was the leader in its niche for around 2 years. Then we've got some server related issues, moved to a new server and connected CDN Nitropack that really improved our google speed test results. Recently we noticed that our rankings started to drop. Do you know if Nitropack can negatively effect local SEO rankings? Thank you!

                    Technical SEO | | vaskrupp
                    0
                  • SO_UK

                    Company name ranking

                    Hi all, I hope somebody can share their thoughts on the below. A web designer launched my client's new website and I have been tasked with the SEO. I was approached with an immediate problem, www.clientswebsite.co.uk was ranking 9th for their company name after being indexed by Google. The search results above www.clientswebsite.co.uk were related to my client but not all, for example a direct competitor was also ranking. I have been working on the SEO for 2-3 weeks and I just managed to get to 3rd position for the company name, and then www.clientswebsite.co.uk disappeared from page 1! And now instead, an irelevant sub page is now ranking for the company name on page 2 (a contact page). I have checked and the home page is still indexed (did a site: check). The only problem software picks up is a redirect chain (http://homepage -> http://www.homepage  -> https://homepage) the web developers said it wouldn't impact rankings (when I asked them to edit the htaccess file to fix it) I've listed below the SEO tasks I completed whilst attempting to rank the company name: I set up analytics and webmaster tools, in which I set up preferred domain (www) Added a sitemap Edited meta data making sure company name was included I contacted the websites above www.clientswebsite.co.uk that were relevant and asked them to place a link linking to their new website, I was successful with a couple of these. I placed www.clientswebsite.co.uk on all of their social media profiles I reformatted headers on their home page, making sure the H1 included my client's company name I found 2 extra versions of my client's home page (not exact copies, but very similar content) that had been published, so I decided to 301 redirect these to the correct home page Activated SSL and forced to HTTPS I would really appreciate it if anyone could share their thoughts here, whether it be explanations or possible solutions Adam

                    Technical SEO | | SO_UK
                    0
                  • rwat

                    Redirect and ranking issue

                    Hi there - was wondering whether someone might be able to help. For a period of a day and a half, all the traffic to our website's blog articles were mistakenly being redirected to our homepage. A number of these articles ranked in the top 5 in Google worldwide for their targeted keywords, so this was a considerable amount of organic traffic that was instantly being redirected. It was a strange site glitch and our web team rectified the error, but now all these articles have disappeared from Google rankings (not visible anywhere in the first five pages). I'm presuming this must be linked to this redirect issue - we've been advised to wait and see whether Google restores these rankings, but I'm still concerned as to whether this represents a more serious problem? We have re-indexed the pages we are most concerned about, but am not sure whether there is anything else obvious we should think to do. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them!

                    Technical SEO | | rwat
                    0
                  • rijwielcashencarry040

                    Remove sitemap, effect ranking?

                    We are considering to remove our sitemap because it doesn't display the right structure. Will it affect current rankings if we remove the sitemap en continuing without a sitemap? Thanks

                    Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry040
                    0
                  • moliver1022

                    Will a CSS Overflow Scroll for content affect SEO rankings?

                    If I use a CSS overflow scroll for copy, will my SEO rankings be affected? Will Google still be able to index my copy accurately and will keywords used in the copy that are covered by the scroll be recognized by Google?

                    Technical SEO | | moliver1022
                    0
                  • CalicoKitty2000

                    Wordpress versus html and google ranking

                    My current SEO has always recommended that I take my site to wordpress.  I really don't want to move to wordpress.  I don't like it... I just like writing code in raw html, css, and script.  I feel like I have more control that way. Wordpress just seems like a platform for blogs (I have my blog in wordpress). My question is, do wordpress websites typically rank better? Is there benefit to moving to it?

                    Technical SEO | | CalicoKitty2000
                    0
                  • DTOSI

                    My Rankings Keep Going Down - Needs some more ideas on why...

                    Hi Everyone, I have been working on the website www.PetsSpark.com for a while now. I used to be on the first page for many of my keywords, now I am lucky if i am on the 2nd or 3rd. I stopped my SEO efforts for about 3 months while making changes to the website, its whithin these 3 months that I started dropping from the first page. The biggest thing I notice is the "type" of website now ranking for my main keywords. Mostly Forums, Blogs, or Product Review websites. Take for instance Dog Tear Stain Remover. I used to rank at about #5 for this keyword and now i rank at #20. I'm not sure if my loss of ranking is a combination of things like who Google is letting rank now or if there is something wrong on my website, etc. Can anyone give me a little insight?? Please.... I will also be happy to give more information about what has been going on if needed.

                    Technical SEO | | DTOSI
                    0
                  • Bandicoot

                    How long does it take for rank to return after 301?

                    Hello all -- just looking for those who have implemented site-wide 301 redirects due to a domain change. I am about 2 weeks into mine and am seeing minimum 5, maximum 21 spot drops in many of my targeted terms. My pages have strong GPR, with most being 3 or higher. Anyone out there been able to track a ballpark of when rank will return? The 301 redirects were implemented correctly, with 1 to 1 setups in most cases. Google has updated the listings with the new domain name, but I'm taking a huge rank hit. Any experience on how long I can expect (I know it's different for every situation) would be great! Thanks.

                    Technical SEO | | Bandicoot
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.