Unlike a traditional shared hosting plan where there is a single server that is responsible for your web site, with a Content Delivery Network there are generally between 50-100 different data centers around the world that all need to have the servers in them configured to accept traffic for your web site. As a result, there is a bit more of a delay until your site is ready to load compared to shared hosting. Generally, your site should be able to be accessed within 30-60 minutes of setting the name servers, however you may need to flush your DNS Cache first. Please allow at least this amount of time to pass after setting your name servers before logging a ticket with support.
In this guide, we explain the factors that can delay your site being accessible with each of our providers.
TL;DR
Allow an hour after setting the name servers at your registrar before trying to access your sites hosted on our platform, to ensure that all deployment processes have completed successfully.
Amazon CloudFront
It can generally take 10-15 minutes after we deploy to Amazon CloudFront for the distribution to be ready. Normally, this has completed during the time it takes for you to update the name servers at your registrar.
For HTTPS sites, it can take longer, as Amazon will send an e-mail to verify the ownership of the domain before they issue the SSL Certificate, and once that e-mail has been received by our systems, it will then approve it and reconfigure the CloudFront Distribution for that HTTPS certificate.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure CDN needs to see the DNS configured before it will allow the site to be accessed via the custom domain name. We have automated checking in place that will continue to monitor this and update the settings with Amazon accordingly.
For HTTPS sites, we can’t request the certificate until after the first step has completed. Microsoft Azure will then send an e-mail to verify ownership of the domain, much like Amazon CloudFront, and once that e-mail has been received by our systems, it will then approve it and reconfigure the Azure Distribution for that HTTPS certificate.
Cloudflare
For Cloudflare sites, their CDN service is generally ready for use by the time that you configure the name servers.
For HTTPS sites on Cloudflare, it can take a little longer for Cloudflare’s systems to request and configure a HTTPS certificate.
HTTPS/SSL Sites on All Providers
For HTTPS sites, we also request a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate from our servers to secure all traffic between our servers and the CDN provider. This can take 15-30 minutes after setting the name servers for that to be issued, during which time, HTTPS requests may fail.
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