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Introducing Our XDN (CDN) & Why Your Website Needs It
So what exactly is this WPX XDN?
First launched back in October 2018, the WPX CDN (Content Delivery Network), now called XDN, is our own superfast, hand-built Content Delivery Network with 30 ‘end points’ (and growing!) around the world.
In 2021, our CDN platform had a massive upgrade on the software side and we have renamed it as our XDN (eXceptional Delivery Network) as our XDN enabled our victory for global average speed in all entered categories in these independent tests.
Not sure what a CDN is?
Put simply, using a CDN is like having a server near any of your site visitors to help load and run your website faster and more efficiently for them, even for visitors from the other side of the world.
For example, let’s say that you’re a nature photography blogger based in Montana, USA, and your website is hosted with WPX in our Chicago datacentre.
That site will load well across North America but nature-lovers visiting your blog from Australia, Europe, Asia, and Africa will find that your website is slower to load for them.
This is because your blog’s content (images and text mainly) is being retrieved from one of our Chicago servers and sent all the way across the world to visitors outside the USA.
Instead, our CDN (XDN) has already copied your popular content to servers around the world to benefit your far-away site visitors.
So whether your visitors are from Berlin, Sydney, Johannesburg, or Tokyo, they’ll see your blog content from a fast local server and not from the other side of the world.
Using our XDN, the speed increase for site visitors around the world is dramatic.
But isn’t the XDN just like any other CDN?
Actually no.
Unlike most CDNs, our XDN was custom-built from the ground up BY us (a hosting company!) specifically FOR high-performance WordPress hosting.
Plus, we test and tweak our XDN constantly for maximum WordPress performance and that’s something that conventional CDN companies (who are not hosting companies) can’t or simply won’t do.
That’s why speed tests show how sites hosted on the our XDN completely surpass other CDN-powered hosting companies when it comes to raw speed!
You can see just how fast our CEO, Terry Kyle’s, image-heavy 13.4 Mb homepage runs on the WPX XDN;
How do I activate the XDN on my websites?
All WPX customers prior to 24th Oct 2018 had the XDN turned OFF by default, while new WPX customers on or after that same date will have the XDN turned ON by default.
NOTE: For the XDN to work, your domains MUST be pointed to WPX Nameservers – let us know if you are not sure and we will check.
To turn ON your XDN service, log in to your WPX Control Panel. From here, choose Service Management (1):
Now click on the WPX Cloud (2) link in the bottom left menu;
From the listed sites/domains here, just click the Toggle button for each site that you want running on the WPX Cloud CDN;
IMPORTANT: after activating the XDN, it will take approximately ONE HOUR for your website’s content to be copied and distributed throughout the XDN network.
If you’re not sure what to do, you can always ask our friendly Support Team and they will enable the XDN on your websites fast and free!
We did not automatically enable the XDN for all customers prior to 24th October 2018 was simply to ensure the compatibility and functionality of all sites with the new CDN.
Will the XDN work with every kind of website?
Yes but some sites benefit much more from a CDN than others.
For instance, if you have a typical WordPress blog with images, text, and optin forms, or even a portfolio site (for photographers or artists), then the WPX XDN will massively accelerate your page’s loading speed.
However, if you have a website with bespoke or dynamic elements, like an eCommerce site with individual shopping carts, then the XDN won’t help as much because those dynamic elements can’t be cached by our XDN.
Long-time WPX customers will know that we have been recommending W3 Total Cache with our custom settings to improve the performance of websites. With the XDN, the W3TC plugin IS still recommended, using our optimal settings.
Is the XDN free for all WPX customers?
Absolutely.
From the date of its launch, our XDN has been freely available for all WPX Hosting customers across all plans: Business, Professional and Elite.
How will using the WPX XDN affect my bandwidth allocation?
It won’t.
All that changes with the XDN is from where and how your site content is served to visitors to your websites, and how quickly.
Plan limits for bandwidth are unchanged.
Where are the WPX XDN end-points around the world?
As of July 2021, these are our current XDN end-points:
1. New Jersey/New York, USA (x2)
2. Chicago, USA (x3)
3. Dallas, USA
4. Seattle, USA
5. Los Angeles, USA
6. Ashburn, USA
7. Atlanta, USA
8. Kansas City, USA
9. Silicon Valley, USA
10. Miami, USA
11. Toronto, Canada
12. Amsterdam, Netherlands (x2)
13. London, UK
14. Manchester, UK
15. Frankfurt, Germany (x2)
16. Moscow, Russia
17. Sydney, Australia
18. Paris, France
19. Tokyo, Japan
20. Singapore
21. Mumbai, India
22. Johannesburg, South Africa
23. Sofia, Bulgaria
24. Sao Paulo, Brazil
25. Madrid, Spain
Should you have further questions about the WPX XDN or need help activating it, please contact us via the live chat widget in the bottom right hand of your screen – we do usually respond in 30 seconds or less.
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