Rackspace Cloud Files for WordPress

How To Setup a Rackspace Cloud Files CDN for WordPress Using the W3 Total Cache Plugin

The video below is a quick run-through of the setup process – hopefully it’s detailed enough to be useful. If you have questions about the process please leave a comment.

If you want to know why you need a CDN for your WordPress website – or if you want to know what a Rackspace Cloud Files CDN is – read below.

First, for all you advanced WordPress users, here’s the how-to video to walk you through it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXUBU_WoF_8[/youtube]

Next, you might want some background on web hosting before reading up on the benefits of a CDN.

How Most Standard Website Hosting Works

Most websites are hosted by a single server. Depending on the type of hosting, this server may be dedicated to a single website or shared by dozens or hundreds of websites. This website hosting server must:

• Store files and answer requests for these files from website visitors
• Execute server-side software and scripts (like the software known as WordPress)
• Execute SQL database queries and/or communicate with the SQL database server, something that many websites require
• Manage itself (some sort of control panel software is always running) and also protect itself (some sort of firewall is usually running too)

As you can imagine, busy websites with thousands of visitors that run lots of PHP and make lots of SQL database queries can really impact a hosting server’s performance. If that hosting server is shared between dozens or hundreds of different websites, things can really slow down.

What’s a CDN and Why Do I Want One?

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers (usually positioned across a continent or across the globe) that all have copies of your website’s files available for download. These servers only have one mission: To respond to requests for files as quickly as possible.

You want a CDN because it makes your website load faster. Here’s how:

1. You put your site’s static files – like your stylesheet and images – on the CDN.
2. When someone visits your website, they can download images from the CDN instead of your website’s hosting server. The CDN server is usually faster.
3. Your website visitors can download files from both your hosting server and your CDN server simultaneously – kind of like drinking with two straws instead of one.
4. You reduce the load on your hosting server, which makes it easier for it to do things like run WordPress, access your SQL database, etc.
5. Because CDN servers are positioned across the country, continent, or globe, there’s a good chance that your website visitor is physically closer to a CDN server than they are to your hosting server. This makes things go a little faster too.

The bottom line is that there are multiple speed benefits gained by utilizing a CDN – even for a little old WordPress-powered website like this one.

Why Rackspace Cloud Files?

When I originally decided to use the CDN feature of the W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin (which is a performance optimization WordPress Plugin by W3 EDGE), my decision came down to using either Amazon CloudFront or Rackspace Cloud Files. Based on this blog post – Amazon CloudFront vs. Rackspace Cloud Files CDN Performance – it was an easy choice.

If you don’t feel like reading that post, I’ll give you the short version: according to Chris Meller, the Rackspace CDN is about 10x faster than Amazon’s. While this data might be old (the post was from October 09′), the fact that Rackspace was so much faster at one point gives me a lot more confidence in them.

Learn more about Rackspace Cloud Files:

The really good news is that Rackspace is incredibly affordable. The monthly cost of the CDN used for SporkMarketing.com, for instance, is less than what I pay for a small coffee.

Finally, in terms of speed, I’ve noticed about a 25% improvement in load times as a result of using the Rackspace Cloud Files CDN and the W3 Total Cache plugin. While this speed increase estimate isn’t precise – response times fluctuate and I’ve never bothered to measure it really carefully – 25% is definitely a conservative estimate.

Recommendation: Use A CDN For Your WordPress Site ASAP

Because of the W3 Total Cache plugin, setting up a CDN is criminally simple. With RackSpace the cost is low, and the speed benefits I’ve measured on this site (and many others) are significant. If your website receives more than a few hundred visitors a month, or if your site makes visitors download a lot of data (images, self-hosted javascripts, flash files, etc.), this is a great setup.

There’s also an SEO benefit in using a CDN…at least indirectly. Faster sites get more traffic from Google and Bing than slower sites. By making your site faster, you increase the likelihood Google will refer people to your site. Check out Rackspace Cloud Files and get started!