Correct configuration for a Netlify Static Website + Custom Domain + 99% visits come from Europe

Support
,
#1

Hi there !

First, some technical data:

  • Netlify site-name: hugonebreda.netlify.app
  • Custom Domain: hugonebreda.com

Yesterday I finally managed to get a healthy build deployed on Netlify of my site built with Hugo Framework

I followed instructions and pointed my custom domain Name Server to Netlify with these values:

  • dns1.p05.nsone.net
  • dns2… (same as first one)
  • dns3… (same as first one)
  • dns4… (same as first one)

… and Voila!

But since yesterday (and also today) I’ve noticed several things:

  • Different persons, very different results
    • Some of them visualize the page correctly ( :+1:)
    • Some of them get a “This site can’t be reached” error (not a “Page not found”) (:-1:)
    • Some of them still see “Registered domain” page (:-1:)
  • Load times are slow, slower than I expected
    • Sometimes even minutes with a blank page loading
    • Others were the browser just shutdown the connection and show a page not found

These problems were observed with domains DNS settings like this:

I’ve just added a NS record like next one, to see if this fixes the problems:

I also saw in the support community that for European accesses to Netlify sites, traffic always get redirected through USA load balancer (104.198.14.52)
So I was wondering, since all my traffic is likely to com from Europe
Is there any better configuration for European sites to avoid this slow times and problems?

Thanks in advance

#2

Don’t have any input on the load balancer question, but I would recommend that you fix a couple issues.

First, remove hugonebreda.netlify.app as a name server in your DNS settings. You should have only the dns1, dns2, etc. entries.

Second, set www.hugonebreda.com as the primary domain for best CDN performance, not the apex domain (hugonebreda.com).

Third, make the link to your style sheet relative instead of absolute. That is, instead of:

<link rel=stylesheet href=https://hugonebreda.com/syntax.min.css integrity media=screen>

use:

<link rel=stylesheet href=/syntax.min.css integrity media=screen>

#3

Hi @gregraven

Thanks for your input, but before applying any of these solutions, let me clarify because I think explained myself incorrectly:

  • In my Domain Provider > Name Servers configuration I have only:

    • dns1…
    • dns2…
    • etc

  • In Netlify Domain > DNS Settings I have only:

Since I added this last record on Netlify DNS Settings, things seems to work better

  • Does this have any sense?
  • Is it correct to have this last record setup?

About http://www vs http://

  • Can you explain me a little why http://www is better than http:// for CDN purposes ? (Or link me to some documentation?
  • These records were added automatically, and when I try to edit it says “This is a system record that cannot be managed directly”
    • How can I edit them?

About changing to relative routes for resources, you’re right, i’m on it

#4

No, this is not correct. There is no name server at that address.

I do not have a link to the different in CDN performance between apex and FQDN. Sorry. It has been discussed – possibly in the blog. I just cannot lay my hands on a link right this moment. It probably has to do with the fact that you can have mail.hugonebreda.com, www.hugonebreda.com, ftp.hugonebreda.com, etc., all as subdomains of hugonebreda.com. Using the www allows the CDN to work properly to deliver only the website files at www.hugonebreda.com. To put it another way, there is no chance that the CDN is going to try to cache your mail or ftp subdomains, for example. By eliminating all subdomain possibilities except for the correct one, the CDN then functions as intended.