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CloudFlare with HostGator...Any Good?

by marketguy
10 replies
Seems like a really useful service.
I would like to know your opinions.
#cloudflare #good #hostgatorany
  • Profile picture of the author kahndoit
    I too have read about this and use the shared hosing service of Hostgator.

    Here are the details from Hostgator and would appreciate a knowledgeable Warrior help me understand how it could/would in any way speed up a site that is WordPress Blog and already running the "Super Cache" plugin.

    Many thanks in advance

    <----
    CloudFlare is a system that acts as a proxy between your visitors and our server. By acting as a proxy, CloudFlare caches static content for your site, which lowers the number of requests to our servers, but still allows visitors to access your site. This automated installer for CloudFlare allows you to setup basic cloudflare protection. The installer is still in beta. There is a risk that it will cause a redirect loop or negatively impact your site. We recommend preforming the installation during low traffic periods.
    Advantages of the CloudFlare system:
    • Site Performance Improvement: CloudFlare has proxy servers located throughout the world. Proxy servers are located closer to your visitors, which means they will likely see page load speed improvements as the cached content is delivered from the closest caching box instead of directly off our server. There is a lot of research that shows that a faster a site, the longer a visitor stays.
    • Bot and Threat Protection: CloudFlare uses data from Project Honey Pot and other third party sources, as well as the data from its community, to identify malicious threats online and stop the attacks before they even get to your site. You can see which threats are being stopped through your CloudFlare dashboard here.
    • Spam Comments Protection: CloudFlare leverages data from third party resources to reduce the number of spam comments on your site
    • Alerting Visitors of Infected Computers: CloudFlare alerts human visitors that have an infected computer that they need to take action to clean up the malware or virus on their machine. The visitor can enter a CAPTCHA to gain access to your site.
    • Offline Browsing Mode: In the event that our server is unavailable, visitors should still be able to access your site since CloudFlare serves the visitor a page from its cache.
    • Lower CPU Usage: As fewer requests hit our server, this lowers the overall CPU usage of your account.
    • New Site Stats: You have good tools to evaluate human traffic coming to your site, but no insight into search engine crawlers and threats. With CloudFlare, now you do.
    There are some limitations of the CloudFlare system:
    • Currently, requests must be directed to www.yourdomain.tld instead of domain.tld (which means you may need to make some configuration changes: WordPress installations are automatically adjusted).
    • CloudFlare may affect internal statistic programs that read directly from Apache logs. (CloudFlare will not affect web-based analytic programs that use JavaScript like Google Analytics.)
    • While your logs will reflect fewer requests to your server and therefore lower load, the experience to your visitors should be unaffected.
    • CloudFlare caches static content from your site. While this reduces the load on your server, it means that if you make a change to an existing static file, like an image, there may be a delay before the change appears. While you are updating your site, you can put CloudFlare in .Development Mode. so changes appear immediately.
    • CloudFlare's basic mode cannot handle SSL certificates. If you need to use an SSL certificate, that part of your site needs to be on a subdomain that is not protected.
    For further reading check out the Cloudflare Wiki and Project Honeypot.


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    Gary
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  • Profile picture of the author ElMundodelExito
    I got their message and was going to activated (since is free) and then I thought I should wait until I hear something in the warrior forum, here we go...
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    I can tell you right now...I don't recommend running anything that caches on a Wordpress membership site. It tends to create problems with members registering.
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    • Profile picture of the author marketguy
      Originally Posted by Jesus Perez View Post

      I can tell you right now...I don't recommend running anything that caches on a Wordpress membership site. It tends to create problems with members registering.
      ok. that makes sense.

      What about non-membership sites?
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      • Profile picture of the author marketguy
        I installed cloudflare 48 hours ago and here is what i have so far:

        -the reports are nice...specially nice to see what the spiders are doing

        -according to CF, my pageload speeds have increased dramatically. i do not see any difference with page speed 1.9 though, so i need more input from you guys to varify.

        looking forward to more reviews.
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  • Profile picture of the author Natlex
    I wanted to try it out but I was a bit scared of the fact it apparently only works with www.site.com . Since my sites are all wordpress which defaults to site.com (no www) even if cloud flare will make the redirect work I was a bit scared of the SEO problems it might do. I suppose on google webmaster tools I would have to change the "preference" option to the www. instead of the current site.com ...

    Hopefully some other wordpress users will comment! Because the service sounds great
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  • Profile picture of the author Dave Lianelli
    Here's what I found till now:

    -Didn't have my WP installation optimized before C.F.
    -Pageload has increased dramatically. First I had wait times of up to 3 seconds. Now it's less than a second. (Didn't use a tool to measure, just my own eyes)
    -Spam-comments, hacking attempts etc have dropped to zero.
    -CloudFlare account shows these spammers, and has blocked them from accessing my website.
    -It shows, in a very nice report - the website visitors, the number of visits from specific search engines and even 'bandwidth saved'.
    -The 'bandwidth used'-number is the same as within my cPanel account. So it must be accurate.
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    • Profile picture of the author marketguy
      Originally Posted by Natlex View Post

      I wanted to try it out but I was a bit scared of the fact it apparently only works with www.site.com . Since my sites are all wordpress which defaults to site.com (no www) even if cloud flare will make the redirect work I was a bit scared of the SEO problems it might do. I suppose on google webmaster tools I would have to change the "preference" option to the www. instead of the current site.com ...

      Hopefully some other wordpress users will comment! Because the service sounds great
      I did change my preference to www. in webmaster tools, without any ill effect on my SEO (so far anyways).
      CF made the changes automatically in WordPress.

      Originally Posted by Dave Lianelli View Post

      Here's what I found till now:

      -Didn't have my WP installation optimized before C.F.
      -Pageload has increased dramatically. First I had wait times of up to 3 seconds. Now it's less than a second. (Didn't use a tool to measure, just my own eyes)
      -Spam-comments, hacking attempts etc have dropped to zero.
      -CloudFlare account shows these spammers, and has blocked them from accessing my website.
      -It shows, in a very nice report - the website visitors, the number of visits from specific search engines and even 'bandwidth saved'.
      -The 'bandwidth used'-number is the same as within my cPanel account. So it must be accurate.
      I am starting to see the same results.
      Spam has stopped on my sites, too.
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      • Profile picture of the author marketguy
        My CTR has gone up by about 15%.
        This may be a seasonal spike, but since i did nothing else to my sites, i believe my improved page load speed is responsible.

        Looks like CF is working.
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        • Profile picture of the author Irmscher
          Now testing this stuff, looks really promising. I'm quite sure I can lift my page load up speed (currently: Page Speed Score of 84 (out of 100) by Page Speed Labs)
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