When I first heard about Cloudflare years back, I was like why the heck I need to use it. My site is loading fine and more over I read too many issues back then. Last year, after WPEngine hosting started charging my site for extra visits, I started using Cloudflare to get rid of unwanted bots and spam visits. That’s how I started with Cloudflare and after using it for months, I’m so positive about this free service that I recommend to all the readers of ShoutMeLoud.
If you are not using Cloudflare or have never heard about it, this guide for anyone who don’t have technical skills to understand and make most out of it. So, lets get started with this detailed tutorial and learn everything about Cloudflare.
What is Cloudflare and how does it work?
To explain Cloudflare: Let’s understand how Internet works. For example lets say there is a website ShoutMeLoud.com which is hosted on a web-server with I.P “9.9.9.9”. Now, when you type ShoutMeLoud.com in your browser, your browser sends a request to DNS and get the result “9.9.9.9”, and that’s how you are able to access the site.
When you setup CloudFlare, you add Cloudflare Name-server to your domain and now Cloudflare starts filtering (Bad bots, hack attempt) all the request coming to your website. There are few more things involved in between, but in short all the traffic which comes to your website, goes through Cloudflare and it blocks any spam or illegal access, thus protecting your website all the time.
Do remember, when you integrate Cloudflare with your website, nothing in terms of technology changes, only the traffic coming to your website is filtered. Here is an image which explains your website with and without Cloud Flare:
Now I recommend every one of you to start using Cloudflare as it’s free to use and you can always upgrade to paid plans (If you require). Here I’m sharing benefits of using Cloudflare which should compel you to use it right away.
Benefits of Using Cloudflare Network:
It stops attacks such as Brute-force and hacking attempt:
Cloudflare filters out most of the spam attacks at the Name-server level and such requests doesn’t even hit your server. It protect your website from DDOS attack, SQL injection, comment spam. This provide a secure environment to your website.
In the past many users have complained that their readers were unable to access the site after using Cloudflare and that is because; they have selected security level to be medium or high. I would recommend to keep it low to ensure visitors from all part of the world will be able to access the site and doesn’t have to face the issue. You can learn more about Cloudflare security here.
While changing hosting, no need to wait for DNS propogation:
This is one benefit which I learned when I was moving from WPEngine to Cloudways hosting. When you are using Cloudflare, you don’t have to wait for DNS propagation to happen. All you need to do is, change the I.P address of server from your Cloudflare Dashboard, and your domain name will start pointing to new host immidiately.
Free CDN:
One of the major benefit of CloudFlare is free CDN. It’s easy to integrate and it doesn’t change your image URL or show URL such as cdn.domain.com. I have been using Cloudflare CDN for almost 8 months now, and never had any performance or SEO related issue. Infact after using it for ShoutMeLoud, now all my sites are Cloudflare CDN enabled. Cloudflare caches your static file (CSS, JS, Images) and serves it from the nearest location. In this Network map you can see where all CloudFlare servers are. If you are not sure what CDN is: Read about CDN (Content delivery network) here.
Using Cloudflare CDN will increase your site performance by almost 50% and also your site will load way faster than it is now.
Save server bandwidth:
A majority of web hosting in today’s date offers unlimited bandwidth but there are many like WPEngine which changes based on hits. Cloud flare filters out spam bots traffic and you save a lot on your bandwidth. From the above image you can see I have saved 375.6 GB for ShoutMeLoud in past few months.
There are many more benefits of using Cloudflare such as it offers RocketLoader which Automatically asynchronously load all JavaScript resources. It protects your website from Email harvesting, It also offers free SSL (Https) which I haven’t used it so far, but those who need SSL can take advantage of it even on their free version.
Important things to know:
When you are making any theme changes on your site (When Cloudflare is enabled), you need to purge Cloudflare cache under settings and enable Development mode. WordPress users can use plugin call Sunny, using it you can purge cache manually or it automatically purge cache when you publishes a new blog post.
After using Cloudflare for almost 8 months, I highly recommend you to use it. This may sounds a bit technical initially to setup Cloudflare (Watch below video), but it’s fairly simple. More over it works perfectly with any cache plugin which you have enabled on your blog and so far I haven’t seen any issue with CloudFlare. For your information, I’m on their free plan. Watch below video to learn setting up Cloudflare for your Website:
Make sure you check your website loading time before and after setting up Cloudflare to see the performance difference yourself. If you are using Cloudflare and knows any major advantage, do let us know via comments. Don’t forget to share this articles with others on Facebook and your community.
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which plan you’re using Free or Pro. For Cloudflare.
pro.
I am using cloudflare. My site getting down sometimes. From your blog learned 2 things that while customising theme, have to put cloudflare in development mode and also put security to low. Now setup is medium. i am changing that now.
Hi,
Have you ever encountered 522 and 520 error while posting a blog post?
I am facing this problem tried few tips available online but not able to be fix the issue.
Thanks you made clear me about Cloudflare. I’ve never used cloudflare before this. I have one question, it is good to change nameserver of my domain or connect via cPanel plugin by CNAME record?
Any idea what I did just after reading this?-> Enabled Cloudflare from CPanel. And volla, all done within an hour.
Nice post by the way, it given me a new oppurtunity to improve my website.
Thanks
Thanks, Sir! As I Also Fond Cloudflare Really Help To Speed Up Website & Also To save Bandwidth.
My website takes a bit longer to load up, I’ll try it out.
Hey Harsh,
Thanks for sharing an informative post for CloudFlare it’s really helpful for my blog for decrease the site loading time.
@Narinder
Happy to hear that. Looking forward to hear more of your experiences in future.
I am really interested in try a CDN, but i am not sure if it will benefit my blog. thanks for clarification.
It is only after reading your post I do something with my website. Great experience with cloudflare. Thanks
Hi, i am planning to add cloudfare to my website, so i searched its review and got this link. it was posted in 2015 and i checked the comment also. I checked each of those commented persons websites and i found that most of the websites are now pointed to cloudfare. so i am defenitly going to add for my website too. thank u very much Harsh.
Hey Vipin,
Wonderful to hear. Let me know if you have any questions
hi harsh. i have tried to use cloudflare on my wordpress website and all done after it shows me error 1000. i have tried so many times but same error.. what to do please answer..
thanks
I use the free version of cloudflare as well. Traffic gets routed through a cloudflare IP address. I also use affiliate marketing where I can earn a commission up to 60 days after someone purchased something after clicking an affilate banner on my website. Will the affiliate software still recognize the purchase if the IP address has been re-routed though cloudflare?
I see a lot of clicks on my affiliate marketing links but no sales.
I am using CloudFlare an Yes it recognizes the purchase
Hi
Thank you for sharing those valuable tips with us. I have one question if you don’t mind
– does cloudflare secure all the websites/domains that are hosted under the same IP in a vps or a dedicated server?
You have to add each of your website to CloudFlare and then change the nameservers of each website to that of CloudFlare.
Nice article. We are using Cloudflare and it’s so far good. The optimization is good for images but not that great for css & js with their free plan.
Hello Harsh,
I knew about CloudFlare as a tool to decrease the loading time of the website but didn’t know it provides security as well. Since I was not sure how to set it up, never dare to use it on my blog. But as you also recommend it, I quite sure to use it now. Thanks for the helpful video.
very helpful review. My site is very new and I was wondering whether or not I should bother about using cloud flare at this time or not, but I think it is better to be prepared for everything ( attacks, SQL injection) all the time and keep your site as fast as possible. Setting up cloud fare is very easy and “No Down time” is what I loved the most.
Thanks for a great article i am going to try cloudflare i hope it help me.
just signed up for Cloudflare . do you recommend getting those paid features?
@Jose
If you want you can. I’m on free plan & so far happy with it.
Should I use a security plugin like Wordfence even when I am on cloudflare?
Wordfence is a resource intensive plugin. My site is always at the resource limits. Is there a better alternative to Wordfence –lite and simple?
Great Post Sir, I’m a big fan of Shoutmeloud.com. I like the way you teach blogging by giving various examples. I don’t know what cloud flare was, but now after reading this article I will surely try cloudflare for my website. Hope it will improve my site’s loading time and will also help in SEO of my website as Google now consider loading time as one of the factor for SEO. Thank you sir for sharing such a detail information about cloudflare.
I am facing loading time issue on my website. I have read lots of articles on your website. I will try cloudfare now. I hope it will help me. Thanks 🙂
Hi Harsh,
Till now i don’t have any knowledge about Cloudflare after reading your article, i got fair idea about it, near future i want to change my blog theme, after changing my theme, i will definitely try to use CloudFlare.
Thanks for such an in-depth information about CloudFlare.
I am using Cloudflare and it rocks.It has reduced my site loading time.
Hi Harsh,
I was using Cloudflare for a month or so, but I saw marked drop in Adsense earning. Any suggestions? Recently I have noticed that u have dropped Adsense completely. Advise please
Hi,
You may refer this link from Cloudfare:
Does CloudFlare impact Google AdSense?
https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200172626-Does-CloudFlare-impact-Google-AdSense-
Regards
Siraj
Nice post. I also wrote about it a few weeks back on my blog. The best part of CloudFlare is the speed and latency.
Earlier I used to get around on 300ms on my US webserver but now it is reduced to 126ms with nearest server being Singapore(no Indian servers on cloudflare network)
Full 5 star rating. Thanks for the share Harsh. 🙂
Cloudflare now gives me 45ms to my website which is cool. 😀
That’s pretty cool. 🙂
i will use cloudflare after reading this blog. and hope it give me positive result. Thanks to share this great post..
I am also using cloudflare and the amazing thing is that site loading time reduced drastically also they provide the analytic. I love cloudflare.
Yes, Cloudflare is superb service. It can allow you to do fast dns changes. There free ssl service is also awesome.
@Handytechplus You can use cloudflare without www
Can anybody tells me what exactly RocketLoader do?
I have been using cloudflare myself and it is perfect service any website needs, especially us bloggers. I will rate 5/5 considering it is free and effective service.
Very Nice post, I am also using cloudflare for my blog and really its very good it also optimize the loading speed upto 40-50%. I am impressed with their free plan as well. Thanks
Great Post Harsh your Blog is Awesome i am a Big Fan of yours i mostly like your Writing Style and you write a too Lengthy Post you have a Great Knowledge by The way thanks for Sharing This Post with us.
nice information dude,, but i do not use www in front of my domain. can i still use cloudfare in my domain? in hostgator cpanel, there is cloudfare menu, and will be efective if the domain has www in front of it./preffix
@Handytechplus
Yes you can still use it without www.
I would suggest you to use the tradition way of changing name server to cloudflare and make them your authentication DNS.