Before we enable CDN service on WordPress, we need to talk about what Cloudflare is. Cloudflare is a CDN (Content Delivery Network) service, and CDN is a technology that shares resources with users faster through files stored on a server closer to the user.
For example, when we connect to a foreign website, we often find that its website loads very slowly; however, if there is a CDN node closer to us (the closer server has temporarily stored the resources of the website), we can obtain data from the nearest node to improve the loading speed of the website.
In addition to supporting CDN services, Cloudflare can also help you handle SSL encryption, compress HTML, JavaScript, CSS resources…
To put it more simply: Cloudflare can speed up your website and protect your website.
The above mentioned are the free plan’s function. If you use a paid plan, of course it can have more powerful functions.
The record below is my step-by-step note for enabling Cloudflare on my personal domain clay-atlas.com.
Register and enable Cloudflare
The following are the steps we need to do. Although there are many steps, it is not difficult.
- Go to the Cloudflare website
- Create a new Account
- Add the domain you want to enable Cloudflare services
- Change the DNS Registrar
- Confirm receipt of Cloudflare’s e-mail and service activation
Step 1: Go to the Cloudflare website
First you need to go to the following link: https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/201720164-Creating-a-Cloudflare-account-and-adding-a-website
Step 2: Create a new Account
- Visit to https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up.
- Enter your email and password to register an account
- Click Create Account.
Then select Protect your Internet.
Step 3: Add the domain you want to enable Cloudflare service
Take me as an example, I added clay-atlas.com, and you also need to add your own domain.
Then select the Free plan. (Of course, you may have other needs.)
Step 4: Change the DNS registrar of WordPress website
The next step is to check the DNS records. If there is no problem, click the Continue button at the bottom.
Next, the page should ask you to confirm your domain name registrar and change the old one to the one provided by Cloudflare.
You can confirm your domain name registrar through WHOIS. As you can see, in the picture below, my registrar is still BLUEHOST.
Then I went to the backstage of my BLUEHOST (you also need to go to the backend console of your hosting company). Next, I edit the Name Servers in the DNS settings.
Here you need to fill in the name provided by Cloudflare.
There should be two names on the Cloudflare website page just now.
Step 5: Confirm receipt of Cloudflare’s e-mail and service activation
After the configuration is complete, don’t forget to select Finish on the Cloudflare page. After that, you should receive an email to the mailbox you used to sign up on Cloudflare.
My experience is that the letter will be received in about 10 to 15 minutes. Don’t forget to use WHOIS to check if the registrar has been successfully changed.
Next is to choose some SSL options, optimization options… and so on.
Finally, if you see this screen, it means that Cloudflare has successfully operated.
The above notes introduce how to enable the CDN service of WordPress through Cloudflare.
References
- https://community.cloudflare.com/t/cloudflare-problem-installing-in-bluehost/178181
- https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/201720164-Creating-a-Cloudflare-account-and-adding-a-website