Find out how to go about moving WordPress blog To and Out of Cloudflare CDN without suffering or encountering any problems. This tutorial too will help you avoid breaking your Blog or website in any event you decide to turn off this content delivery network and back to your usual hosting service. I am sharing this article for reason being that a few days back, I did help a friend who was stuck after his blog broke the very first time he tried to move it to the CDN. The reason was simple, activating certain features which his host never supported. This goes on to show you how important it is to chose a right hosting provider with all major features depending on the platform you are using for example WordPress.
WordPress is a content management system while Cloudflare is a content delivery network. For went about moving WordPress blog To and Out of Cloudflare CDN and successfully using the services, they share enjoying certain features including speed, reduced load time, saving server bandwidth, and many others on the positive side while on the negative side, many share encountering images and icon breaking, blocking of genuine visitors and many others.
But how about if you learnt how to go about the entire moving WordPress blog To and Out of Cloudflare CDN without have to encounter any of the problems which many do? I have used Cloudflare on a number of client sites and am personally happy with the outcome. And below are my recommended ways and tips when moving to and out of Cloudflare CDN.
Tips to follow when moving WordPress blog To and Out of Cloudflare CDN
1. First consult with your host they know about Cloudflare and if they support all of their features. This will help you know what to activate and what not to depending on the response they give back to you.
2. Also inquire if your host have a back up of your entire site / contents on their server. And if they have, its okay but if not, then do your own WordPress backup using the many plugins which support this. This will help you recover your blog in minutes using the backed up files just in case it breaks during course.
3. To move to Cloudflare, first register your Blog by directly accessing https://www.cloudflare.com and creating an account. Then go to your Domain control panel and change your Name-servers to those provided by Cloudflare which are usually skip.ns.cloudflare.com and rita.ns.cloudflare.com. It is very important save your current hosting provided nameservers just in case you want to migrate back. Save chances when done and wait. Now you should configure Cloudflare using the best recommended settings..
Best WordPress Cloudflare recommended settings
– Enable Crypto SSL since it encrypt communication to and from your website using SSL even when you dont have SSL installed on your blog or website.
– Set firewall to medium, this helps adjust your website’s Security Level to determine which visitors will receive a challenge page.
– Leave the speed option untouched unless you are an upgraded member.
– Set caching level to standard as this determine how much of your website’s static content you want CloudFlare to cache. Increased caching can speed up page load time.
– Don’t touch pages rules unless you are an upgraded member since that offers you more than the 3 rules which are available for free users.
– Under networks, activate IPv6 Compatibility while leaving the Pseudo IPv4 off. Set on to IP Geolocation.
4. Use a tool like https://www.whatsmydns.net/ to see which IP address you are currently having as that will help you know when you have fully migrated to cloudflare from your usual host. Now its time to monitor the performance of your site and see how its all working.
5. To move back to your host (Out of Cloudflare), All you need is to Change from the Cloudflare given nameservers to your host nameservers. This is how the saved original nameservers come in. Once you do the changes, just wait until your nameservers appear in your DNS. You can monitor using the same Whatsmydns tool.
In case you experience any problems like having a broken site, my recommendation is simple. Use the back up you saved and revert your site to how it was before you switched to Cloudflare.
