One SEO professional asked John Mueller during a hangout about whether using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) can improve their rankings.
Their question was:
They get the majority of their traffic from a specific country. They hosted their website on a server located in that country.
Would John suggest that they put their entire website behind a CDN in order to improve PageSpeed for others globally?
Or is this not required in their case?
John explained that there’s nothing wrong with doing a CDN. Also, however, he doesn’t believe that this would have a big effect on Google at all regarding SEO.
The only effect he imagines that something might happen is where users end up seeing the page speed improvements.
And if the majority of your users are already seeing a very fast website, because your server is located there, then you’re doing the right thing.
Of course, if users in other locations are seeing a very slow result, because of a connection to your country not being that great, then this is something where you may have some opportunities to improve on.
And you could see that as something of an opportunity in the sense that, of course, if your website is really slow for other users, then it’s going to be rare for them to start going to your site more. Because then it’s really annoying to get there.
Whereas if your website is pretty fast for other users, then at least they have an opportunity to see a reasonably fast website, which could be your website.
So from that perspective, if there’s something that you can do to improve things globally for your site, then John thinks it’s a good idea.
But, it’s not critical.
CDNs are not something that matters in terms of SEO. But it is something you can do to grow your site past just your current country.
One thing John wanted to clarify was that if Google’s crawling is really really slow, then of course this can affect how much Google can crawl and index from your website. So this could be an aspect to look into. John also mentioned that, based on the majority of websites that he’s looked at, he hasn’t really seen this as being a problem.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John (Question)
Does putting a website behind a CDN improve ranking? We get the majority of our traffic from a specific country. We hosted our website on a server located in that country. Do you suggest putting our entire website behind a CDN to improve PageSpeed for users globally? Or is that not required in our case?
John (Answer)
So obviously, you can do a lot of these things. I don’t think it would have a big effect on Google at all, with regards to SEO. The only effect where I could imagine that something might happen is what users end up seeing. And kind of what you mentioned, if the majority of your users are already seeing a very fast website, because your server is located there, then you’re kind of doing the right thing.
But of course, if users in other locations are seeing a very slow result, because perhaps a connection to your country is not that great, then that’s something where you might have some opportunities to improve that. And you could see that as something kind of in terms of an opportunity in the sense that, of course, if your website is really slow for other users, then it’s going to be rare for them to start going to your website more, because it’s really annoying to get there. Whereas if your website is pretty fast for other users, then at least they have an opportunity to see a reasonably fast website, which could be your website.
So from that point of view, if there’s something that you can do to improve things globally for your website, I think that’s a good idea. I don’t think it’s critical. It’s not something that matters in terms of SEO, in that Google has to see it very quickly as well or anything like that. But it is something that you can do to kind of grow your website past just your current country.
Maybe one thing I should clarify, if Google’s crawling is really, really slow, then of course that can affect how much we can crawl and index from your website. So that could be an aspect to look into. The majority of websites that I’ve looked at, I haven’t really seen this as being a problem with regards to any website that isn’t like millions and millions of pages large. So from that point of view, you can double check how fast Google is crawling in Search Console and the crawl stats. And if that looks reasonable, even if that’s not super fast, then I wouldn’t really worry about that.
