The further away the location of the server from the visitor, the longer it takes for the content to download due to distance between the visitor location and the server.

CDN attempts to reduce this time and delay, by having copies of the content distributed across multiple geographical locations in order to reduce the distance, hence the delay.

What is the benefit of CDN?

There are many benefits of CDN:

1. Faster Pageload – Pages load faster on the visitor’s browsers as the website content is being delivered to the visitor from the nearest node.
2. Reliability – As nodes are independent, they can continue to operate even if the main server has failed.
3. Bandwidth – Every visitor is being served from their nearest node, so the bandwidth used at the main server is reduced. If the hosting company is charging by metering the website traffic, this can reduce hosting costs.
4. Security – Most CDN services have protection against malicious attacks such as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) where attackers try to overwhelm the hosting server.

How does CDN works?

CDN services, including hosting companies that offer CDN service, have points of presence (nodes) across multiple regions, so that they can get as close as possible to the visitors.

CDN services mirror the content of the website to these nodes, hence reducing the response time to visitors requesting to view a web page.

Typically a CDN service will have at least one node in every continent, and more expensive services will have these in every country, in order to reduce the response time further.

How up-to-date is the content at each node?

There are 2 techniques that CDN services use to keep the content at each node up-to-date.

1. Auto-renew – Nodes request the latest version of the website from the main server on preset times, usually every midnight.
2. Forced Renewal – The website hosting server can request “Delete/Purge” of content and send new versions. Typically this is done when the website content has been updated. The request can be automated within the server whenever an update is detected, or the website administrator can force “Delete/Purge” request.

How does the Website Administrator request Purge?

This depends on the hosting and CDN service the website is using.

Hosting companies that offer CDN as part of their service have a CDN section within their Control Panel (CP). This enables the website administrator to manage the CDN service including requesting “Purge”. Once the content is purged, a new version is sent to each Node.

Independent CDN services have their own Control Panels, that allows the administrator to carry out the same function via the CDN supplier.

If the website is WordPress based, the hosting company may offer an integrated WordPress management, which will display a “Purge” button on the Admin page.

How much does CDN costs?

Charges vary enormously so website owners need to look carefully at their website traffic volumes and read the small prints!

Here are some examples:

• Cloudflare – They offer a free version for small websites, but prices rise to $200 per month and for higher volume websites the prices increase substantially (prices correct in 2026)
• Amazon CloudFront – Amazon offers a free service for small websites. For larger users the price is based on traffic starting from $15/month (Pro), $200/month (Business), and $1000/month or higher depending on traffic (Premium). (prices correct in 2026)
• Akamai – Pricing is more complex and is based on location of the nodes (Europe, North America, etc.) plus your usage per hour, so you really need to work out what you need. (prices correct in 2026)
• Hosting Company – Some quality hosting companies include CDN in their hosting services, which is why you should not just look at headline pricing for annual hosting fees. There is more to hosting than people realise.

Summary

CDN is a very smart way of reducing visitor’s frustration with slow pageload, avoid Google penalties for slow website loading, protect your website from DDoS attacks, and increase the reliability of your website.

When choosing a cheap hosting service, you need to consider these services that can make hosting your website more expensive than you realise. Contact us to find out about our hosting services, and what we include in our prices.

Many WordPress website owners don’t realise the importance, until they update their theme and lose all their customisations.

What does a child-theme do and why is it so important?

The long version of the answer is on this link, but below is the short version.

WordPress Child Theme is a dummy theme that references your website to the main/original theme, which allows you to implement all your customisations on the Child Theme rather than the original theme. This allows you to protect all your customisation from being wiped out during Theme Upgrade. Without it, if you upgrade your theme to the latest version, all your customisations will disappear as they are overwritten by the new version of the theme.

How can I create WordPress Child Theme?

This is pretty simple when you first set up your website, but a lot more complex to do it after the event.

1. When setting up a brand new WordPress website, it is very easy to create a Child Theme. You can either download plug-ins that do the work for you (e.g. for an example click here ).
2. Alternatively you can create it yourself if you fancy some coding by clicking on our article here!

How can I create a Child theme retrospectively?

This is a little more complex, specially if you have any CSS customisation (styling), or functionality that has been added to your original theme.

This requires detective work, and the more complex changes, the more work you have to do.

The principal is simple:

1. Create a Child Theme (manually or using a plug-in)
2. Find out what has been changed on your websites
3. Copy it to your Child Theme

Easier said than done, as finding all changes is not as easy as people think.

Finding styling changes in your CSS file is relatively easy, but if there is custom code or functionality, then it is much harder.

In both cases you need to take these additional steps:

1. Download the original theme
2. Install it on your website
3. Rename it as “New” so you can identify it easily
4. Compare the files and CSS of the New Theme that you have installed to your live theme
5. Copy the changed files to your Child Theme
6. Rename the live theme to “Old”
7. Rename the New Theme by removing “New” from the name
8. Activate the Child Theme
9. Check that everything works as expected (if it does not behave as you expect, you need to check the old theme again)
10. Delete the old theme

As you can see, it sounds simple enough, but then again it isn’t as easy as it sounds, and in some cases very time consuming.

Summary

As the old adage goes, do it right or do it twice! If you set up your WordPress website correctly with a Child Theme from day one, then it is a very easy process and will save you hours of work and costs if you have to get someone to fix it for you.

If Child Theme was not set up in the first place, it is worth going through the pain and costs, as not doing it could prove to be even more costly in the long run. If your customisation is overwritten by your theme upgrade, you cannot recover the changes unless you have a back up of your website so that you can restore the site back and start the above process.

In complex cases, we recommend you use a professional as trying to do this yourself after the event, can become frustrating and time consuming. Contact us and we can help you set up your WordPress website correctly.

However, allowing your email account to be used as an archiving system can cause problems on many fronts.

To understand the problem we need to first understand what is an email client and how email clients work.

How do emails work?

Conceptionally emails are easy to understand. They consist of an email address with an @ and a server that receives and sends emails.

Usually your email provider gives you a limited storage space, with many suppliers now giving you minimum of 1GB or more, with additional storage as an optional extra.

What is an email client?

There are 2 ways of accessing your email account.

• Browser – This is how you access your public email such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. by directly accessing the server. Some business and enterprise email providers allow similar access, also known as webmail. This method requires you to have internet connectivity at all times, as there are no copies of your emails held on your device.
• Email Client – This is a software application that you install on your device (Desktop, Laptop, Tablet, or Mobile). Email clients such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Applemail, Bluemail, etc., enable you to operate multiple accounts from a single device, as well as enabling you to view your emails when you are not online (although you cannot send or receive new emails until you have internet connection).

How do you connect your Email Client?

There are 2 modes of usage when deploying Email Clients

• POP (Post Office Protocol) – This method copies all your incoming and outgoing emails to your device. This means you have a copy on your device as well as the server. Whilst you can connect more than one device to a single account and devices can see all incoming messages, each device can only see emails sent from the device, and not other devices.
• IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) – This allows multiple devices to connect to the same email account, as the devices and the server are synchronised. In this case, whilst all devices can see incoming messages, they can also see all sent message across all devices.

POP vs IMAP Which one is better?

This is a matter of opinion, as it really depends on how you use emails, however as a general rule, if you have multiple devices (or people) accessing the same account, it is better to use IMAP as every device has copies of all incoming and outgoing emails.

Another advantage of IMAP is that users never have to worry about change or loss of device, as all emails are on the server, so a new device can be synchronised and have copies of all emails within minutes.

POP leaves a copy of incoming emails on the server but outgoing messages are held on the device that sent them and not the server. This means if you lose your device, or device crashes and dies, you cannot recover your outgoing emails.

What can go wrong?

Most problems with emails is when you are using an email client. Most people use an email client, as email clients are much easier to use than direct access via browsers, specially if you have more than 1 email account.

The major issue with email clients is usually caused by users allowing emails to get out of control and the main file becoming too large.

Email clients use a single file to store emails, for example PST for MS Outlook. When these files become too large, they tend to freeze and crash, which eventually will lead to file corruption. The file size that causes problems differ between different email client applications, with some suffering when you exceed 20GB, whilst others can run trouble free until you exceed 30GB or more.

It is difficult to predict the size of the client file that can cause issues for your device, as there are many variables, so the best practice is to keep the size of your email client file under control.

How to control the size of Email Client file?

There are many good practices that can help you keep the file size under control, but the important thing to remember is that your email should not be used as a filing cabinet!

Here are some of these strategies:

• Clean up old emails – Do not retain old emails, as unlike antiques, the value of emails do not go up by their age! Delete emails that are older than 2 years, as you are unlikely to need them.
• Attachments – Attachments are space hungry, so limit the size of attachments people can send you, and save the attachments on your device and delete the email at the first opportunity.
• File Sharing Services – If you need to receive or send large files, then use file sharing apps such as G-Drive, DropBox, or WeTransfer services instead. They are more secure, and do not eat into your email storage, nor do they bloat your email client file.
• File Storage Services – Important documents and attachments should be saved on either external drives, or file storage services such as G-Drive, DropBox, etc. Your email server is not the place for them.

Summary

Your email is not a filing system, and you should avoid using it as such. Emails are great for referring back to old discussions or files, but this practice should only be used as a short term solution.

Bloated large email client files can cause serious issues, and corruption of the data can lead to loss of the entire data, so avoid an ever increasing size of your email account.

Here is the list of what you need in order to have a website for your business or if you want a personal website.

What is a Domain Name?

This is your website address on the Internet that is unique to your website. It is important to realise that you do not own a domain name, but you obtain the right-to-use it for the period that you purchase, for example 1 year or multiple years.

You purchase the right-to-use from a Domain Registrar, which then holds your details and where your websites is hosted on the Internet. Although some Registrars offer hosting services, it is not mandatory to host your website with them. Read more about domain names by clicking here

Your domain name matters so you need to choose carefully. Click Here to read about why domain names matter.

It is worth remembering that new domain names struggle to do well in search engines such as Google until they have gained the trust and authority for their domain. If traffic to your website is going to be your primary source of leads and revenue generation, it is worth considering purchasing an existing domain name with a good history from specialist resellers. Read more about this.

What is TLD?

TLD, or Top Level Domain, is the extension to your domain name that sends an important signal to search engines about your target market. For example, a domain using dotCOM signals that your target market is Worldwide, whilst domain with country specific TLD such as dotES signifies you are targetting Spanish market as your primary country.

TLD does not determine the language, but can have significant impact on your traffic profile. Read more on TLD and impacts by clicking here.

What is web hosting?

You now need to set up your website on a server, also known as Web Hosting. Web hosting companies provide powerful servers that can host 1000s of websites. The service levels and prices varies widely, so it is important to understand what matters most when it comes to your website hosting.

Read this guide on how to choose your web hosting company.

How do I get an email address?

It is advisable to have an email address that matches your domain name, as using Gmail, Hotmail, or other virtual services can result in suspicion and lack of trust in your business.

Your hosting company usually includes at least 1 email account, but many provide multiple email accounts as part of their hosting packages. Click here to see examples of options

How do I create a website?

Now that you have a domain name, with the appropriate TLD, and a hosting service, you now need to create a website, or get a developer to create one for you.

You have 3 options:

1. Make your own using Web Builders

Be careful using web builders as it means you are locked into your hosting service provider. These types of websites can only work on the hosting server they were built on originally, so if you are not happy with the service you get, you can’t just pick up and go to another hosting company

Web Builders also have limitations in their capabilities and functionality, or where they offer the functionality they can prove to be expensive in the long run. So find out what the web builder platform provides, what is included, what is optional, and costs of each option.

Click here to read about the pros-and-cons of Web Builders vs Content Management Systems.

2. CMS (Content Management Systems)

These include WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. These enable competent users and developers to create great websites at a reasonable cost, as they allow administrators to create designs, manage content, and add functionality such as e-commerce, Video Players, Members Only sections, etc.

WordPress is by far the most popular, which you can find out why by clicking on here.

3. Bespoke Websites

If you require sophisticated functionality and design, you need to employ a developer, who can create these for you.

However, you need to create a website brief for developers, as it is a costly mistake if you are hoping they can come up with the solutions without you fully briefing them. Click here to read about how to create a website brief for a developer

When employing a web developer, you need to be careful as you can easily become a hostage to them, if they do not fully document the code for you. Without a documented code, it is expensive and sometimes impossible to find another developer to maintain or manager your website in the future. Here is what you need to be aware of when using developers.

Summary

Having a website is now a default requirement for any business or individual who is offering services or products.

There are some mandatory requirements in order to set up a website, as well as some pitfalls that you may live to regret later. Contact us for sound advice and let us create a great website for you.

To understand this, we need to understand some basics of website design and content management.

What is CMS?

CMS (Content Management System) is any software on your device, or on your hosting server, that allows you to manage the content on your website including creating, editing, and managing design of your website.

What are the CMS Options?

WordPress is the most popular and widely used CMS, accounting for 60% of websites that use CMS to manage their content, which translates to 43% of all websites on the Internet. (Not all websites have a CMS).

However, there are other options and according to W4Techs Web Technology Surveys in 2025 the usage of CMS across the Internet was as following :

• WordPress = 43% (472 million websites)
• Shopify = 4.4% (48 million websites)
• Wix = 2.7% (29 million websites)
• Squarespace = 2.2% (23 million websites)
• Joomla = 1.7% (18 million websites)
• All others = 46%

Are there different types of CMS?

There are 2 different types of CMS offerings.

1. Open Systems

Example of these are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. These can be hosted on a server of your choice, which means you can move your website between different Web Hosting Companies, but it also means 3rd party developers can work on your website.

2. Proprietary Systems

Examples of these systems are Wix, Squarespace, and all so-called Web Builders. These can only be hosted on their author’s servers, and only the authors’ engineers can work on these websites.

For the pros and cons of these types, click here to read our blog that covers these points.

What are WordPress’s advantages?

Most of the benefits derive from the widespread use of WordPress as a CMS including:

Free Usage

WordPress is free software and you are free to use it for as long as you wish, and receive software updates during the lifetime of the website free of charge.

Range of Themes

WordPress requires themes in order to create a website design. There are free and premium (paid) themes that you can use. There are over 50,000 themes including free and premium (paid) versions, including many that specialise in different sectors such as hospitality, real estate, services, restaurants, e-commerce, and many more.

Plug-ins

These are used to add additional functionality to your website such as contact forms, security, payment systems, page builders, membership, e-commerce, etc. There are over 90,000 plug-ins available to use, which means they cater for most requirements for functionality and design. Click here to read more on Plug-ins (https://www.cognisant-hosting.com/our-top-10-wordpress-plug-ins/).

Skills

As with any website development, you need to be careful about becoming a hostage to your developer, however, as a result of wide usage of WordPress, there is a huge pool of specialists around the globe that can help you create, customise, and implement a website that is uniquely yours. This means even when using a free or premium theme, your website will not look like any other website, but more importantly, there is a wide pool of talent that can come to your rescue if your developer lets you down.

Hosting

WordPress can be installed on any standard Linux server, providing a secure and reliable hosting platform. This means unlike Proprietary Systems, if you are not happy with the level of service your hosting company provides, you can easily and quickly move your website to another hosting provider.

Low cost of Ownership

Combining all of the above, it means WordPress has a very low cost of ownership vs other options, as the choice of plug-ins, developers, and hosting companies make the market highly competitive.

Summary

Choosing WordPress means you have access to the largest community of developers, themes, plug-ins, and hosting providers. This means you are never short of options in design, functionality, and support.

Contact us as we are one of premier WordPress specialists and can offer you design, development, and host your website with packages that suit your needs.