CDN (Content Delivery Network)
A global network of servers that caches website content close to users for faster loading, while also filtering malicious requests and absorbing traffic spikes.
Full Definition
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a geographically distributed set of servers (edge nodes) that caches static and dynamic web content close to end users, reducing latency and origin server load. CDNs like Cloudflare, Fastly, and Akamai also double as security layers: they inspect every incoming HTTP request, apply WAF (Web Application Firewall) rules, and run bot-detection engines. From a scraping perspective, reaching a CDN-protected site means your request is first evaluated by the CDN's bot-score algorithm before being passed to the origin. Many sites rely entirely on Cloudflare's bot management, making anti-Cloudflare techniques a core scraping skill.
