Website performance — the speed in which web pages are downloaded and displayed on a user’s web browser — should be a primary consideration when delivering great digital government services.
Cloudflare offers a free service that helps to address key areas of performance, including:
- Security: Firewall, DDoS protection, rate limiting, bot management, VPN
- Performance: Intelligent routing, mobile & image optimization, video, cache
- Reliability: Load balancing, DNS, virtual backbone
ProudCity recommends that government websites use Cloudflare to provide an added layer of performance protection.
How it works:
- Create a Cloudflare account.
- Import your current DNS settings as part of the Cloudflare onboarding wizard.
Note
.gov domains: If you’re setting up a .gov domain for the first time and want to use Cloudflare, set up your Cloudflare account first, as they require a DNS (domain name server) host as part of the process.
DNS interruption: When you’re setting up Cloudflare, there may be some short-term DNS issues that could cause users to not have access to the website.
Steps
- Sign up for Cloudflare.
- Register for the free plan.
- Follow Cloudflare instructions for domain setup.
- Submit a ticket with the message “Our website is set up for Cloudflare” in the description.
Do’s and don’ts
Do
- Set up Cloudflare before publicly announcing the launch of your new website.
Don’t
- Wait to set up Cloudflare after you have publicly launched your website.
ProudCity is a digital government platform that makes it easy and cost-effective to launch and manage all aspects of digital government operations, including websites, meetings, online forms and payments.