Jun 13

DDoS Protected DNS breakdown

DDoS Protected DNS: What is it?

DDoS protected DNS service is a strong network with servers strategically placed around the world. Servers are quite good at balancing traffic loads. In the case of an attack, to be on the lookout. When traffic spikes are noticed, the load is distributed across the network’s servers. If an attacker manages to bring down a server rather than experience downtime, more employees will continue to work for your organization.

What exactly is a DDoS attack?

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is a type of cyber-attack that attempts to take down your service, network, or website. This is commonly accomplished by sending a large quantity of bandwidth to your server until it falls down or by exploiting a DNS or protocol fault, such as the UDP flaw, to treble the traffic to your website or service.

There are many distinct types of DDoS attacks, and they frequently bring down even large corporations, such as Amazon. As a result, if you do not have adequate protection, you are putting yourself in grave danger. Furthermore, if you use shared hosting, any attack on one of your “neighbors” will have an impact on you as well.

Why is DDoS Protected DNS beneficial?

Depending on the DNS Hosting provider, this service may provide a variety of features. It does, however, come with a slew of advantages for your system. The following are a few of them:

  • A thorough investigation of the traffic. It gives you a better knowledge of traffic patterns and allows you to compare them.
  • Load balancing. The massive volume heading your way may be too much for a single nameserver, but what about an extensive network of nameservers cooperating? Yes, you can distribute traffic across all of your nameservers. The greater the service’s number of points of presence, the better. A larger network of DNS servers is more likely to withstand an attack.
  • Action-taking software. Because of the previous method, you’ll be aware that you’re being attacked, but what will you do about it? Actionable software is often used to prevent this by routing requests, screening them, and providing an alarm system.
  • All incoming DNS traffic is monitored. If it detects an unusual pattern, it may take a number of steps to prevent a DDoS attacks on your website. As a result, acknowledging the traffic is essential.
  • Failover feature. It may warn you of the outage and divert traffic to the remaining DNS servers if one or more servers go down. Without the need for a human operator (also knowns as Human-Machine System), automatically.

Cоnclusion

In conclusion, any company, big or tiny, could be the victim of a DDoS attack. Furthermore, they might linger for days, if not months, as the organization attempts to recover. Because of this, DDoS may be highly disruptive to any online enterprise. To keep this from happening, take precautions.

Mar 08

DNS MX record explained

The domain name system (DNS) always has something in store for us to learn. From its architecture to its functionality, different components, and records. And exactly today, it is the turn of DNS MX recorded to be explained.

What is the DNS MX record?

MX stands for mail eXchange record. DNS records are vital for giving instructions for different DNS processes to happen. A DNS mail exchange record (MX) is a resource record that the domain name system uses to point correctly to the exact name of the incoming e-mail server where e-mails have to be sent. Yes, you got it! MX record indicates the responsible server that has to get the e-mails sent to a determined domain.

Why do you need MX record?

Have you ever thought about how many e-mails are sent daily through the Internet? It takes different steps from the sending to the proper delivery. But let’s focus on the last part. Once the mailman is in your place (domain), a mailbox is needed for him to put the letter. Without a place to safely concentrate all messages you receive, it could go messy. You could lose some, your neighbor’s dog could bite others, rain could ruin them, etc. 

How does it work?

DNS mail exchange (MX) record holds the machine’s hostname in charge of managing domains’ e-mails and a code for prioritization.

Plenty of electronic messages can be sent to you from different locations and sources. Through MX records, servers that are in charge of receiving your messages will be indicated. All messages sent to you will be routed to those servers. 

When MX records are not well configured for indicating the correct receiving servers, simply you won’t get electronic messages.

MX records work closely to Address (A) records, the ones that map a domain name to the IP address version 4 of the machine that is actually hosting that domain. An A record translates domain names into IP addresses.

The way to route e-mails is using IP addresses, and such are set on host’s A records.

Now think it in the way back. When you create an e-mail, sending it to a recipient address, your device needs a key datum: the server where recipient’s e-mail is hosted. What your device does to get that is to look for the DNS MX record at the nameserver holding information for the domain to which your recipient’s address belongs. Once the device gets the MX record, it reads it and then, it can send the message you typed to the correct server.

DNS MX record content

These are the elements an MX record has.

Type (or record): MX

Host: meaning the domain name.

Priority: through a number, from 0 (zero) to 65535, it is established the e-mail’s priority or importance. Priority is read this way: the lower the number is the higher priority.

Points to: the specific server that is in charge of receiving the domain’s e-mails.

Time to live (TTL): the time the DNS MX record will be valid or saved in the cache memory. 

How does a backup MX record work?

It is common to use MX records for a backup purpose. This means something simple: you have a higher priority e-mail server, so it has been set up a lower priority value. And another with lower importance but higher priority value. When everything is working normally, e-mails must go to the higher priority e-mail server. But if something goes wrong and that server is not available, the backup e-mail server can do the job.

DNS CNAME record explained

Conclusion

DNS records have very specific tasks, and all of them play an important function for the DNS to operate without problems. In this case, without using DNS MX records, you could not receive e-mails efficiently and accurately.

Mar 07

Teardrop attack – Definition and Details

Teardrop attack explained

The Teardrop attack is one of the popular DoS (Denial-of-Service) attacks. It aims to overwhelm its target with malicious fragmented data packets, which the victim is not able to reconstruct and finally is incapable of operating. This attack takes advantage of a specific vulnerability inside the TCP/IP reassembly operation. The fragmented data packets exceed the capacity of the victim until, at some point, it crashes in its try to process them. 

How to detect the Teardrop attack?

In the IP header of the packets is paced a field named “fragment offset.” It indicates the starting position, or the offset, of the data transmitted in fragmented packets. When the sum of the offset and the size of the packets are not equal, they overlap. The victim is incapable of reassembling the packets, and the DoS attack is completed.

Why is it important?

The vulnerability that the Teardrop attack uses usually refers to more aged operating systems (OS). For instance, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Linux with kernels earlier to 2.1.63.

The truth is that a significant number of businesses and institutions are still using older, obsolete, or unpatched operating systems. Typically, the reason for that is because they run legacy applications, which require these older versions of operating systems. Therefore, all of these businesses and institutions are extremely vulnerable to the Teardrop attack. Unfortunately, in many cases, such a threat aims to take down mission-critical applications.

How to stop the Teardrop attack?

As a user, you could perform several things in order to prevent and stop a potential Teardrop attack. They are the following:

  • Disabling the Server Message Block (SMB): In case you are using a legacy OS, that means you are no longer receiving the needed security patches from vendors like Microsoft. Therefore, you could disable two ports – 139 and 445. Server Message Block (SMB) gives the ability to users to have access to shared files, printers, and serial ports.
  • Protecting network layers: Due to the fact that the Teardrop attack targets the network layer, it would be best if you implement a firewall that will filter junk data. 
  • Utilizing caching servers: There is a chance to avoid the Teardrop attack by implementing caching servers. These servers are able to guarantee that their websites are up and running even if a DoS attack is initiated. That is possible thanks to the stored local duplicates. 
  • Using proxies: With proxy servers, users are able to examine the incoming data packets for fragmentation violations and don’t let them pass through into the network. It is very helpful for recognizing unwanted data and stopping it from arriving in.

Conclusion

The Teardrop attack is a cyber threat that should not be neglected. In case you are a user that is still working with legacy operating systems, make sure to take some measures for prevention.

Dec 10

Dynamic DNS: What is it and how to use it?

Dynamic DNS explained

The Dynamic DNS (DDNS) automatically updates and changes the IP address of a host. Thanks to it, visitors are able to reach your website even in case its IP address changes.

As a very simple service, Dynamic DNS gives you the opportunity to connect with your various hosted services when the ISP changes your IP address (IPv4 or IPv6). Let’s say, for instance, you could have a web hosting server, database server, mail server, or maybe you utilize your home network for your CCTV cameras together with DDNS.

For ISPs, it is easier to administrate the network by changing the IP addresses. Therefore, they lease them to their customers only for a certain amount of time. For that purpose, they assign this task to a DHCP server. As a result, the customers receive a different new IP address whenever the time period expires.

The solution – DDNS is actually easy to set up and use. Typically this service is free and suits various situations.

Advantages of Dynamic DNS

Some of the advantages that DDNS is able to provide are: 

  • A simple and easy solution. All you have to do is get the service, and then the software is installed. Ready!
  • DDNS is a cost-effective option. You can find paid and free DDNS providers. Yet, it’s more affordable than spending for static IP addresses for your business’ devices.
  • You will receive notifications in real-time for the IP changes to the DNS server.
  • Undisrupted access to your server or website. It doesn’t matter if the IP address changes. Your visitors are going to be able to reach your website.
  • Placing security cameras is going to require a great and stable connection to the Internet. Thanks to Dynamic DNS, they will keep functioning 24/7.
  • Easy and smooth remote access or VPN access for employees that work from home. 
  • If you are using your computer to host an app, game server, or website, you will sense the advantages of Dynamic DNS.

​How to use it?

  1. First, you have to open the control panel of your router. You have to be connected to the router and type its IP address or hostname in a browser. In the router’s manual, you can find the IP address or the hostname. Yet, you can find them on the router itself too.
  2. Log in to the control panel with the original username and password. If you have modified them, employ the new ones, or reset the router.
  3. Then, find the Advances settings. It is possible, the menu to also be named More settings.
  4. Next, find the Dynamic DNS menu or DDNS menu. It is the same.
  5. Write all the data about your Dynamic DNS service provider. 

Dynamic DNS Provider – Its name. It could be a dropdown menu, yet it depends on the router. 

Username: Your username that you used to register.

Password: Your password with the DNS provider. 

Hostname/Domain: The hostname that you made. 

Server/Server Address: The name server or its IP address that the provider gives you. 

Lastly, you have to save everything. There could be an Update button in some routers, which is going to show you the current IP address. In other cases, there could be a Status button where you can notice the result.

Sep 01

Best Free DNS hosting providers

Do you want to improve your domain availability? A free DNS hosting is a great way to go. While having a free DNS hosting might be a bit limiting, it is an awesome first step to learn more about the DNS. You can use it to experiment, see the improvement and understand better what you want.

The DNS hosting, even a free DNS hosting, could improve the domain’s speed and provide redundancy to the system, so you experience less downtime.

Here we have created a list of a few good free DNS hosting providers that could be ideal for your DNS beginning.

ClouDNS

Cloudns.net has a very decent Free DNS plan. The limits that you will have will be up to 4 DNS servers, 1 DNS zone, 50 DNS records, and a good amount of monthly DNS queries – 500k. You will be able to use different types of DNS records, not just the basics, and there are some extras like Dynamic DNS that could come in very handy. Additionally, you will have statistics about your DNS traffic and live-chat support, which is great for a free plan. If you outgrow it, you can upgrade to a paid plan later.

Namecheap

Namecheap.com is another DNS provider that has paid and free DNS plans. Inside its free DNS plan, it offers a few nice surprises, like the possibility to use a Secondary DNS. You can use it for a backup and better redundancy. It has a good set of DNS record types like A, AAAA, MX, NS, ALIAS, CNAME, Web redirects, and more. Here you will also find Dynamic DNS. It has 24/7 tech support. Namecheap.com and Cloudns.net are very alike in their free tier DNS, so if you are thinking about one of them, it could be a good idea to see their premium plans, too, for the future. 

GeoScaling

GeoScaling has one great ace up its sleeve for a totally free service – GeoDNS. It can understand the incoming traffic and redirect the visitors based on their location. That is incredibly useful and rare in a free-tier DNS. Apart from that, it has a good limit of 1M DNS queries per month and good support of DNS record types. Another nice addition is the Dynamic DNS support. The team behind the organization is not as big as in the previous two, but it is an attractive offer nevertheless. 

Buddyns

This free DNS provider offers a free Secondary DNS service, and it is betting on security. It has DNSCurve for encrypting DNS queries for free. Free DNS security is another uncommon feature that is very welcome. You will also benefit from a free DNS monitor, good uptime, and the possibility to use AAAA records. It comes a bit short is the monthly limit of 300K DNS queries, and there is no customer support too, but it offers paid plans. 

Dns4

The last of this list will be the Dns4.pro. It offers interesting features like Anycast DNS and DNSSEC for free. Its shortcomings are that its free plan works with up to 5 domains, no statistics, and 500K DNS queries per month. There is a paid option, but they are not transparent enough about the price, so it might be good to use it just for a smaller project. 

Conclusion

Now, there are a lot more DNS providers, and many have free plans. The free DNS plan is a good hook into the world of DNS. Seeing the improved performance very often leads you to desire more. We can recommend you to think about your needs, current and future ones, and then think about which one of the free DNS hosting providers you would like to try. 

Aug 10

4 common phishing attacks and how to protect yourself?

The phishing attacks are another deceptive experience criminals have in store for us. Not a surprise, since the Internet and its amazing development have also attracted people from the dark-criminal side.

How to get profits is a question with legal but also illegal answers. And phishing belongs to the second group. It is a fraudulent way to take advantage of people and/or organizations, to get their money. 

Phishing attack – How does it work?

What is phishing?

Phishing attacks are a fraud attempt driven through digital communication, mostly e-mails. The illegal method involves impersonating reliable entities to persuade people to reveal their sensitive data.

Phishing uses messages (e-mail, SMS, etc.) to approach targets. Malicious images or links are attached for you to click on and set up malware that gives criminals control over your system. Or those links can direct to fake websites for entering sensitive data (login credentials, bank card details, etc.).  

4 common phishing attacks.

  1. Spear phishing. Shady people research companies’ websites, social networks, etc., to get the personal data of targets to send them personalized messages. They know you have kids, an e-mail with your name, current job, etc. A message including such information gets more convincing. The report of strange activity on bank accounts, services’ renovation, a job offer, prize, or attractive coupon will urge you to “confirm” your data through a forged website.
  2. Whaling phishing. It works pretty much like spear phishing. The difference is whaling targets top-line executives from organizations. Again, the objective is for victims to download malware or fall into forged websites to reveal sensitive information (personal or from the organization). 
  3. Angler phishing. On social networks, tons of personal data are publicly shared, and criminals can communicate with a perfect cover. People get persuaded to click dangerous URLs for downloading malware, providing sensitive data, etc.
  4. Vishing. Voice and phishing are the weapons. Criminals approach people through e-mails to get their data. But while trying to transfer your money to their accounts or to purchase something, the operation requires an SMS code to be validated. Criminals don’t quit, so they call you impersonating a bank executive or another character to get that code.

How to protect yourself from phishing attacks?

Improve your security. Phishing approaches victims through e-mails. Use MTA-STS, DMARC, DKIM, SPF. They are e-mail authentication methods for detecting and stopping messaging threats like phishing.

Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). The basic combination user/password is not safe anymore. Add a layer of security through 2FA to prevent spoofed accounts. Basically, people will have to prove their identity through a second attempt to get access.

Anti-spam filters. Filtering is another choice for identifying unwanted and virus-infected messages and stop them not to reach inboxes.

Software for virus detection and clearing. Have an efficient anti-virus software to keep your organization’s devices free of threats. Remember that phishing can attack your employees as a way to reach your organization’s sensitive data.

Follow daily safe practices. 

Limit the information you make public. 

Open e-mails just after checking the sender’s address. Not checking it completely makes you skip details that can point to a phishing attempt. Example: banknotifications@gmail.com, just by reading this, you can know there’s no bank that will communicate via Gmail account. 

Don’t click on attached links or download files without verifying them first.

Check your e-mails with time, never in a hurry. Lack of attention leads to mistakes and deceptive destinations.

Double-check by a different means (phone, person to person) urgent notifications about bank movements, tax or health care notifications, prizes, etc.

Conclusion.

Phishing can be a disaster for individuals and organizations. The human factor is totally involved in this crime. Enhance your security with modern technology, but don’t underestimate training yourself and your team to avoid this risk.

Jun 30

DoS vs DDoS attack (differences)

Such a title is the introduction to a really heavy menu. Both are perhaps, the most dangerous attacks that can be implemented online. Consequences for targets are absolutely not pleasant. Servers’ outages lead to big losses in terms of time, money, users’ and partners’ trust.

Criminals’ purposes define the strength of the attack.

  • To demand a ransom.
  • To call attention or defending personal or political ideas. 
  • To show power. Some hackers look for respect in their community through such attacks.
  • To delete a rival competitor through these unfair methods.
  • To distract companies’ owners from data breaching. 

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks

DoS is an online attack that uses an infected source to send big loads of traffic to its target with the clear objective of shutting it down. Users won’t be able to access it until the situation is fixed.

Attackers use traffic in big amounts because they know systems will be overwhelmed while trying to handle it. Also, the resources of the system will be highly demanded. Then users won’t be attended. Everything will slow down until the point of crashing.

Besides flooding systems with traffic, DoS can work by exploiting vulnerabilities that can lead the target to crash. Knowing those, criminals choose a weapon to attack, a proper input to be sent. That way, they destabilize the victim’s system until it gets offline.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks  

This cyber-attack is executed to totally stopping systems’, servers’ or networks’ functionality. Again, the means to attack is traffic. But in this case, we talk about massive loads of traffic driven from multiple infected devices. That is why it is “distributed”. Attack sources can be located at different points of the world. This makes it more dangerous than a DoS attack.

Sluggishness is a symptom that can alert the target. It can fight back, but if it doesn’t succeed, it will be shut down, and the service for users will be denied.  

DDoS attackers have developed and mixed different techniques to attack. Based on the final purpose they have, they can hit their target really strongly. What makes this threat possible is the huge amount of devices connected to the Internet that exists. And it increases every day. Computers, wearables, millions of Internet of Things (IoT), servers… can be infected by criminals to direct all the needed traffic to drown their victim.

DoS vs DDoS attack (differences)

There are important differences between these evil attacks.

Let’s start with a big one between DoS vs DDoS attack. In DoS, the attack is directed from one infected system to a target. This means the attack can be really aggressive, but the target can still have more defense chances because the battle is one-to-one. DDoS operates the attack using multiple infected traffic sources from more than one location, which makes it harder to stop it.

To track the system where the DoS attack is coming from is not hard for technology currently. But imagine the time and resources that it will take to track the multiple sources of a DDoS attack. And if you manage to stop some, many more will keep attacking at the same time.

DDoS gets its malicious objective of shutting down targets so much faster than DoS can. While attacking from multiple sources simultaneously, resources of the attacked system will be strongly demanded, defenses weakened, and it will turn off. It takes longer for DoS to reach that point.

Both attacks use traffic to saturate targets. But the amounts of traffic a DDoS can reach are far larger and more dangerous than the ones DoS can produce.

5 Hackers who made history

Conclusion

DoS and DDoS mix different techniques to attack for successfully reaching their malicious purpose. The good news is security tech already offers you defense methods against them. To enhance your security shield always will be better and cheaper than paying for fixing the consequences. 

Jun 27

DNS SOA record explained

To properly understand DNS and its function, we must investigate each of the DNS records, how they work, and why they exist. There are many, but there are a few that we must understand from the start. This is why we will begin by explaining the DNS SOA record.

What is DNS SOA record?

The DNS SOA record is the start of authority. It is the beginning of the chain of authority that the DNS has. It will point which server, from all the nameservers that you have, contains the original zone file. This server will be the authoritative DNS server, and it will have all the important information about the zone.

Inside the DNS SOA record, there you can find information about the zone transfer, the rate of refreshing, and the rate for retry if not refreshed properly. Also, inside it, you will see the DNS administrator’s contact information.

Here you can find the structure of the DNS SOA record!

DNS SOA record is so important to the DNS because the DNS is a network of name servers. All of them need to work together and show up-to-date information. 

When a query arrives at the recursive DNS server, if it cannot be resolved with the current DNS records, the recursive server will ask the authoritative DNS server for the records. Later it will keep the record, for the time the TTL value indicates. 

When somebody changes DNS records in the authoritative name server, and there is a DNS notify list, this information must be updated down the chain. The list will have IP addresses of the recursive DNS servers that can access the data in the primary and perform a transfer without waiting for the refreshing interval to expire. The transfer could be incremental (IXFR) or full zone transfer (AXFR zone transfer).

Purpose of DNS SOA record

DNS SOA record exists to show the top authority about a zone, its beginning (the authoritative name server for the zone).

For a zone, only one DNS SOA record should exist, and a zone must have SOA obligatory. If you try to put more than one DNS SOA record, your zone will stop working.

The DNS SOA record also serves for zone transfer, as it contains the latest version of the DNS records for a zone and indicates if the secondary DNS servers must update or no.

What’s inside a DNS SOA record?

When you open a SOA record, this is what you will see inside it:

  • Name – Name that the DNS admin has put.
  • Type – The type of the DNS record, which will be SOA.
  • Primary name server – The authoritative DNS server for that zone.
  • Admin’s email – The email of the DNS administrator for that zone.
  • Serial number – The serial number of the zone that we mentioned before. It will indicate if the secondary DNS servers must update their DNS records or no.
  • Refresh rate – This number will show how often the secondary DNS server must re-visit the authoritative DNS server and check for changes.
  • Retry rate – The number indicates for how long should the secondary DNS server continue to try to perform zone transfer if the previous failed.
  • Default TTL – The number is a time interval that shows for how long the DNS records are valid. After the time runs out, the secondary DNS servers must discard them and perform zone transfer again.

If you are interested in DNS records, take a look at DNS CNAME record explained!

Apr 13

5 simple ways to improve my website security

These are the 5, most essential ways that you can use to improve your website’s security. Apply all of these ways, so you could have far fewer security problems than an average website owner. Better security means fewer problems and better business results.

Update everything!

You need to keep everything, CMS, plug-ins, add-ons, everything up to date. Most of the updates are not feature updates but maintenance and security updates. They fix different vulnerabilities, add patches and protect from an ever-increasing number of threats.

To update everything, you have two choices:

  1. Set everything to auto-update. This is the easy way, that won’t require you extra time. Most of the CMS and their plug-ins have the possibility to enable auto-update. It is very convenient, but sometimes, new bugs occur and might bother the normal site functionality.
  2. Update manually. You can get notified of updates and chose if it is the right time to update. The update might bother your site functionality for a short time, so that way, you can program the process for the time you want. And also, you can choose to update when you are sure that the new software won’t introduce new bugs.

Use strong passwords and 2-factor authentication (2-FA)

Don’t use “admin” as a user name and a basic password like “1234” or “12345678”. Those are not appropriate, not even for your home Wi-Fi router. Make it as hard as possible for hackers. Use long passwords, full of symbols, numbers, capital, and small letters. Evade using real words and try to randomize it as much as possible.

And when you get the best possible password, combine it with another authentication method. Use 2-factor authentication will make it really hard for hackers.

For the second authentication, you can use your mobile number, e-signature, a mobile app, or PC software. A great way is to use a USB flash drive with an e-signature that you keep offline and use when needed.

Encrypt everything

A great password will be good for nothing if it travels through the web in a plain text file. You need to ensure the whole communication. Use an SSL certificate for your site. It is useful both for your users and their privacy and for your backend. You, your writers, and other teammates must have a secure connection, so they don’t lead to a security bridge.

To connect to the administrative panel, you can use SSH for security.

Also, it will be a good idea to invest in a VPN for you and your teammates. The VPN will create an encrypted tunnel that will keep the communication safe.

Scan for vulnerabilities

There are many free and paid security scanners, websites, add-ons, and servers’ tools that you can regularly use to check your site. Usually, you simply write down your domain name on one of these sites, or install and run the add-on, and leave the work to the malware scanner. They can check for malicious software, check your SSL certificate, see suspicious files, and more.

Do the scanning procedure often. It is a great way to improve your website security.

You can find issues and later fix them without getting into problems.

Backup everything!

Even if you are doing everything right, there is still a chance that your site gets hacked. The hackers are good, and there are even organized groups of hackers that are up for hire. So what can you do? Keep a backup of everything. Regularly download a copy of your site, your databases, and content too. Keep them offline on cold storage like an external hard drive or flash drive if your site is light. The best thing you can do is to have at least 2 backups that you regularly update and keep in different locations. Imagine if they are together, and a natural disaster hits. You will be left with nothing.

Conclusion

These were our top 5 tips to improve website security. Each of them is incredibly important. Overseen security is a mistake that you can’t afford. You and our visitors must have top-notch security, so the business runs smoothly.

Mar 17

How to make my website faster?

Whether your website has an attractive design or great promotions for users, if loading time takes too long, they will leave, and maybe, they won’t get back. 

Speed has become a critical factor in guaranteeing a satisfactory user experience and better ranking on the search engines. 

If you really want to compete on Internet, speed must be a priority. Check out the following hints, fasten your belt and leave your competitors eating your dust!

Use a managed DNS service

This will help you with the first step, resolving the domain name. When somebody writes your site name, the request travels all the way to the name servers where your domain is registered. This can take a long time. You can have name servers closer to your clients with a managed DNS provider. That way, your domain will get answered faster.

Cache your website

Saving non-dynamic website elements to use later really reduces loading time. This means users’ requests will be served faster because a cached version will be displayed quicker. Of course, there can be changes from time to time, but in such a case, to load them will take just a little more, with the advantage, an updated version will be cached again.

The variety of cache plugins that can give you a hand with this task is wide. From paid and easy to use, to a bit harder to set up, but free, you decide. 

Choose a proper web hosting service

There are many web hosting providers. You should look for modern server technologies, SSD, and the availability of resources for your website’s future growth. Servers’ location is a factor to be considered, especially if your site targets just a local audience or users from specific countries. Choose to be closer to your potential clients.

Pay for CDN

CDN means Content Delivery Network, the gold possibility for your website to be strategically present in many points, through servers located around the world. A copy of your site is saved in those servers, so your users’ requests will be redirected to the nearest one. 

This is an expensive but very efficient alternative. If it suits your budget and business needs, it’s worth trying.

Don’t use heavy scripts

Offering an attractive and modern site is good, but consider that, when you open a page, the browser will load all kinds of scripts for appearance, functionality, security, etc. Better try to keep them simple and not too many.

Lighter themes are better

The priority must be not to add too heavy stuff to be loaded. You want users to stay and visit your site as deeply as possible, so you can rank better on the search results. Keep it light and simple.

Optimize every image and video

Images can be a double-edged tool. They give a nice look, but heavy formats and resolutions can make your site so slow. Compress the resolution and prefer light formats, like the popular .JPG. Lower the quality. It’s a website, not a printed magazine.

By default, videos are heavier than images. If you include them, optimizing is a must.

Leave ads out

The basic text ads are gone already. The current are media files (images, videos, scripts…). Better not to have them or to reduce them to the minimum. 

Conclusion

You can really speed your website. Always try the rule, “simple is better”. The fewer things on every page, the faster your site will perform.