Everyone knows that the speed of the blog is taken into account when ranking pages in the SERPs. There are various ways to speed up your blog by using CDNs and plugins. In this post, I will be discussing 3 best free services that you can use easily to speed up your WordPress blog.
1. Cloudflare
Cloudflare is one of the best CDN services that you can use for free. You can also create a premium account but for normal blogs the free account is enough. Apart from CDN services, it also provides Security and Analytics Details. Now, let’s take a look at all the features of Cloudflare.
CDN
Cloudflare currently has 23 data centers around the world which stores your site’s static files. When a visitor opens your site, Cloudflare makes sure that your site’s static files are retrieved from the nearest data center which in result increases your site’s speed.
According to Cloudflare, on average for visitors your site will load twice as fast , will see 65% less requests and 60% of your bandwidth will be saved.
Optimizer
Cloudflare’s web content optimization is one of the best. It has loads of features like AutoMinify CSS and Javascript, Javascript Bundling, Asynchronous Loading, Local Storage Caching etc.
AutoMinifying CSS and Javascript will compress your site’s Javascript and CSS files and results in faster loading. Javascript bundling makes sure multiple javascript requests are converted into a single request instead of multiple ones which results in faster page loading. Asynchronous loading enables your HTML part of the site to load fast without being delayed by slow loading widgets or scripts.
Another recent feature introduced by Cloudflare is the Rocket Loader which is still in BETA. It loads all your Javascript resources asynchronously giving your site more speed. However, some users have reported problems after turning ON this service. Some claimed that their website was not loading properly and some of their scripts were not loading. However, I do not have any problem using this service on one of my blogs. But, if you do face any issue, it is better to turn it OFF.
Security and Analytics
Cloudflare Security and Analytics works hand in hand. Security monitors the threats to your site and Analytics gives you a detailed data of where that threat came from. It also has the feature of blocking a specific user if it finds that the user has the habit of spamming sites around the internet.
A suspected spammer will not be given direct access to your site. To enter, you would have to verify a captcha image provided by cloudflare itself. This feature prevents suspicious bots from gaining access to your site’s both the frontend and the backend.
Apps
Cloudflare also has some apps which you can easily use with your site. Some of the apps require membership and some are premium which requires you to pay a monthly payment. But overall, it supplies with you some useful apps which you have to check out for yourself.
2. Incapsula
Like Cloudflare, Incapsula has identical features. It’s security features include protection against scraping, spam and preventing unauthorized access to both the backend and frontend of your site. It also has a premium plan which you can use if you’re looking to equip your site with more security.
For a free plan, Incapsula offers more security than Cloudflare. It has a running Web Application Firewall which protects your site from SQL injections and other online threats. Another feature it has is DDoS protection which basically protects your site from Network and Application level threats.
It also consists of a CDN and an Optimizer which accelerates your site and makes loading atleast 40% faster. Like Cloudflare, it also has Analytics which monitors real time traffic and suspicious bots and sends you a detailed e-mail about the threats it has encountered.
One other thing you should know is Incapsula and Cloudflare are configured in different ways. In Cloudflare, you need to change your Nameservers of the domain while in Incapsula, you need to update your DNS settings IP for your main site. Both of them work in the same way. When a user visits your site, the domain points to your hosting IP via their (Incapsula and Cloudflare) respective servers.
3. Google Page Speed Service
Google Page Speed Service is the one I use currently use for my WordPress blog. It doesn’t have so much security features like in Incapsula and Cloudflare. But it is the simplest to configure. All you have to do is add the domain in Google Page Speed Service and it provide you with a CNAME which you have to add in the DNS settings of your WWW subdomain.
It only has one kind of security and that is it can block requests based on IPs you mention in their Block Requests section. It doesn’t provide security as much but it can sure speed up your blog.
Detailed data about the bandwidth, requests, traffic is shown in the Console API itself. Kulwant Nagi of Blogging Cage, recently wrote a post about it which you can check out here. You can also check out the official guide on how to use the pagespeed service here.
Currently, Google Page Speed Service is provided for free but Google has plans to make this a premium service. So, you can still use it as long as it’s free.
So, what do you think about these free services ? Do share your views in the comment section.
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About Amit Shaw
Thank for your post, after studying about the ways that make speed up blogs, and read your post, the next time i will try to use one service you mentioned above.
Thanks for dropping your comment and don’t forget to share your experience with us Truong 🙂 Thanks. Keep visiting.
I have already tried Cloudflare and Google pagespeed service. Looking forward to Incapsula.
But you have not mentioned your experience about these two free services.right now my site is hosted on hostgator and not sure whether to use any of these or not. Would you like to share with us.
Cloudflare didn’t work well for my blog. However, it showed some minor improvements in Google Page Speed Score.
I think the better way to boost the performance of your blog is by using W3 Cache plugin. This has worked great for me.
Before using W3 cache plugin, iWebTool speed test showed my blog takes 2+ seconds to load. But once I started using the plugin, it’s loading under 1 second!
I loved clourdflare only because it showed cached version of my blog even when the server was down! Thumbs up for that.
But if the downtime of your server if low then i think it is of no use to redirect the site through cloudflare.
Hi Rakesh,
Cloudflare increases your site’s speed in that sense that it retrieves the data from their nearest data centers when someone opens your site. For example, if you open a site from India which has a server in US, then it would take longer to fetch the data and open it on your browser. But if you have some cached data of your site saved in a data center somewhere in Europe, then it takes less time to open the site. So, even if there are no downtime of your server Cloudflare can still speed up your site.
I actually use W3TC with Google Page speed service and it has increased my site’s speed greatly.
Hi Rakesh 🙂 Nice to see you again on iTechCode. Yeah i am using HG Too and Never used any service like CDN, GPSS or Incapsula on iTechCode even i am not using W3TC or any Caching Plugin. Bcz i developed my theme only for Speed. But I read some awesome reviews for CDN and GPSS which really helps to speed up blogs.
Thanks for dropping your comment Thejas,
Yeah Incapsula is new for me too. Let me use it then You can expect a review from me 😉
Thanks Lahaul for this Post.
Keep visiting Thejas.
Hello Amit,
I’m little busy with exams so I cannot try Incapsula. I’m waiting for your review so that I can start using it if you think it’s cool!
Added your blog to my favorite blogs list! 🙂 So you can expect me here again!
Thank You
~Thejas
Hi Thejas,
Thanks for stopping by. Before you use Incapsula, if you have Better WP Security, you need to deactivate it because it can cause problems.
I already used Google Page Speed Service. It is an awesome feature. But I don’t know about Cloudflare or Incapsula service. It seems awesome tool to improve site speed. Can we use all these free tool together?
Hi Ahsan,
You should use only one of the services at a time. I did some experimentation with Incapsula and Cloudflare. What I basically tried was to use both Incapsula and Cloudflare at the same time to increase my site’s speed. A lot of DNS errors occured because of this. I tried to use Cloudflare on the back of Incapsula and it caused a lot of DNS propagation errors and my site was down for 24 hours. So, you should use only one of these at a time.
Hello Ahsan,
I think it’s better to use any one of these 3 tools. But try all the three and choose the best that works the best for you.
Use Google page analysis test to get your blog scored out of 100 and see if there are any improvements in the score! 🙂
Wow! These are really amazing blog speed up services. I do know cloudflare & CDN, but it’s good to know more services. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thanks for stopping by, Nizam. Keep visiting. 🙂
I use Cloudflare on all of my sites. Their free plan is more than enough. It not only speeds up our website, but also takes off much of the bandwidth usage thus taking the load off my server. In addition, Cloudflare can also serve cached pages if my website goes down for any reason – so I don’t lose visitors even if my site is down!
Cloudflare is one of the best. The bandwidth really goes down and the good thing is that Cloudflare shows you how much bandwidth it has saved and also how many requests it has saved. That’s one of the things I love about Cloudflare.
Thanks for stopping by Jane. 🙂
Hi Lahaul,
informative Post!
Thanks for this Review! I don’t Know Such kind of things! 🙂
Mosam
Thanks for stopping by, Mosam. Keep visiting.
google page service is a very well known tool…also cloudflare is second best when it comes to cdn, the first one is maxcdn which i prefer mostly! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by, Gautam.
Google Page Service and Cloudflare are very effective for increasing site speed. Most people prefer MAXCDN because it is a premium service. But for those can’t afford it, the three services that I mentioned are the best.
Hi Lahaul.
I read many reviews about CloudFlare on the net and most of them were not good..
At many places it was written that when most of the users who enabled cloudflare noticed a decrease in adsense earnings as well as traffic also decreased and this was because whenever someone visits a website when cloudflare is enabled, the log which is sent to the server contains the IP address of the Cloudflare server and not the original IP address of the visitor.. Due to this many webmasters saw that Google showed numerous visits from same IP address and also their earnings as well as traffic decreased..
Please if you can throw some light on this..Waiting for your reply…
Regards,
Ashwani Kumar Singh
Hi Ashwani,
I have never heard of this scenario. Well, it might be possible. I do need to check this out before I can give you details on this.
Thanks for letting me know about this issue.
Hi Lahaul,
tthnx for this nice n informative post it will help new bloggers a lot to speed up their blog
regards
vishvast
Thanks for stopping by, Vishvast. Glad you found the article helpful.
Awesome info for speeding up a blog made on WordPress…
Thanks for stopping by, Atul. Glad you found the article useful.
I would not recommend CloudFlare as it may block your traffix significantly. I have experienced.
I have never experienced anything like that. In fact, my traffic has increased after integrating Cloudflare probably because it loads whole lot faster. Are you sure that the traffic you used to have before installing cloudflare were legit ? Cloudflare blocks suspicious and malicious traffic.
100% legit and 41% organic.
CloudFlare blocks traffic which it find suspiscious. True. But those suspects can be your loyal readers too..Not arguing, just sharing my own experience 🙂
Google page speed service is awesome
Well CloudFire and Google Page Speed are often used by Bloggers so they Recommend it. But I have heard very little about Incapsula, Does Incapsula Provides Analytics for the attacks Done over Website?
Yes it does, Ravi. In fact Incapsula will even send you a daily and weekly report of your traffic stats to your e-mail inbox.
Hey, Great post.
I have had a lot of problems with the speed of my WordPress blog when people are trying to access it from far away. I am going to checkout the CloudFlare CDN network to see if that can improve the speed of my blog.
Thanks for the info 🙂
I am currently using Cloudflare and W3 Super Cache plugin on one of my blogs and the combo is working superb for me. Reduced my blog load time by almost 50%. Will try out other services too.
Thanks for posting. 🙂