The Katana Option

Because we partner with CloudFlare, we can provide an extra layer of security & speed (and therefore of SEO) on top of your current hosting plan.

Here are some of the features.

Priority DDoS Protection

Priority DDoS Protection offers high-level safeguards against DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, ensuring faster response times and prioritized protection during larger, more extensive DDoS events. It’s like having a VIP pass for extra safety during high-volume internet traffic attacks.

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Enterprise Content Delivery Network

Enterprise Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a service that speeds up the delivery of your website’s content (like images, videos, and web pages) to users all around the world by storing copies of your web pages over 285 locations worldwide. By distributing content closer to website visitors by using a CDN, visitors experience faster page loading times.

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Web Application Firewall

A WAF or web application firewall helps protect web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet. A WAF is like a security guard for your website, automatically filtering out harmful traffic and blocking threats before they reach your site.

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Image optimization

Image optimization is like a digital weight loss program for your website’s pictures, making them smaller in size without losing quality so your site loads faster. It’s about providing the best visual experience to your visitors without slowing down their browsing.
The 3 main techinques used are:

• Image Resizing: Creates high-quality image variants using a single primary image from your origin. Resize, crop, compress, or convert images to WebP to reduce bandwidth costs and increase performance.
• Mirage: Accelerates image delivery for your visitors based on their device. Mirage detects screen size and connection speed to optimally deliver images for the current browser window.
• Polish: Reduces the image size by stripping metadata and applying lossless or lossy compression to remove redundant bytes from images.

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Argo Smart Routing

Argo Smart Routing intelligently navigates data traffic on the internet, directing your website content along the least crowded pathways to your users, which can enhance your website performance by as much as 30%.

Imagine a city-wide race. One runner is equipped with a traditional paper map, while the other leverages a modern smartphone loaded with Google Maps. This advanced tool provides real-time traffic updates and recalibrates the route for maximum efficiency.

So, who would you bet on to win? If all paths across the city were open and unobstructed, it would likely end in a tie, with both runners charting the shortest possible route.

However, in a scenario that mirrors real life – where certain roads could be choked with traffic – the runner with Google Maps would have a distinct upper hand. Thanks to live updates, they can identify and circumvent any traffic snarls.

This is the difference between a website using old-school routing techniques and one that’s empowered with Argo Smart Routing.

HTTP/3

HTTP is an essential backbone of the Internet — it dictates how communications platforms and devices exchange information and fetch resources. In short, it is what allows users to load websites.

HTTP/3 is a new standard in development that will affect how web browsers and servers communicate, with significant upgrades for user experience, including performance, reliability, and security.

HTTP/3 is like the latest high-speed train in the world of internet communication, making the journey between your website and users faster and more efficient. It’s an upgrade from the older HTTP/2, enhancing both the speed and security of data transfer. Think of it as the internet’s express lane, helping your users reach your content quicker than ever before.

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Brotli compression

Brotli compression is like a digital vacuum sealer for your website, squeezing your data into a smaller size without losing any of its quality or information. This makes it quicker and easier to send your website data to your users, speeding up load times and making their browsing experience smoother.

It is a better compression than the traditionnal gzip.

PCI DSS

Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance means obeying a set of security policies for cardholder data. All organizations that process transactions with credit, debit, and/or prepaid cards are subject to PCI compliance requirements.

PCI DSS stands for “Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard” (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS framework guides businesses with robust processes for securing cardholder transaction data and card authentication information. It is intended to protect both cardholder data and authentication data with requirements that help prevent, detect, and react to security incidents.

PCI DSS compliance is like a seal of approval that says your business follows the rules for securely handling credit card information. It’s the security standard for businesses that deal with card payments, ensuring that your customers’ sensitive payment data is well-protected and your business operates within the law.

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Edge Page Caching

Our servers are already equipped with full page caching via varnish, which caches the full page output of your webpages at your origin server. Edge Page Caching takes this a step further by caching the entirety of your web page at Cloudflare’s edge servers in 275+ POPs worldwide. The page is then loaded from the cache, and delivered immediately to any users requesting the web page from the edge server nearest to the user resulting in lightening fast load times.

This is typically significantly faster than partial caching, which only stores specific content on your webpage, such as images, CSS files, JavaScript, etc. The rest of the content still needs to be served from the primary server, resulting in slower load times. According to our testing, Edge page caching results in 66% faster load times on average compared to partial caching with our Cloudflare Enterprise add-on.

Edge Page Caching is like a super-efficient memory system for your website, storing your web pages at various points (the “edges”) around the internet to deliver them faster to your users. Think of it as having a copy of your book in libraries around the world, so readers can get it quickly, no matter where they are.

Rate limiting

Rate limiting is a strategy for limiting network traffic. It puts a cap on how often someone can repeat an action within a certain timeframe – for instance, trying to log in to an account. Rate limiting can help stop certain kinds of malicious bot activity. It can also reduce strain on web servers. However, rate limiting is not a complete solution for managing bot activity.

Global Rate Limiting is like a nightclub bouncer for your website, controlling the number of requests that can come in from across the globe to prevent overcrowding and maintain a smooth performance. It ensures that your website doesn’t get overwhelmed by too much traffic at once, keeping things running smoothly and efficiently.

The Honey Pot project

The Honey Pot project is a trap-like system set up on the participant’s websites, allowing them to identify spammers & their spambots. Spammers usually use bots to collect email addresses from websites, which is why you or your customers may get unsolicited emails of unknown origin.

Participants of the Honey Pot project put specially tagged email addresses on their websites. These do not belong to any real people but act as bait for spambots. When these addresses receive emails, Project Honey Pot identifies these as spam, & because these addresses are tagged with the time & location (IP address) of the visitor, the project can tell when & where the email address was scraped from.

The Honey Pot Project is like setting up a digital trap to catch malicious internet activity. It provides fake vulnerabilities to lure in hackers and automated threats, then identifies and learns from their tactics to enhance your website’s security. Think of it as a bait that attracts and traps cyber attackers to keep your real digital assets safe.