Overview
In the StackPath Control Portal, when you create a site, the portal will display a wizard to help you navigate the site creation process.
This document helps to complement the on-screen instructions in the portal. Additionally, you can use this document to customize a newly created site.
Step 1: Create a site
- In the StackPath Control Portal, in the left-side navigation, click Sites.
- Click Create Site.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.
- After you create a site, you cannot change the name of the site.
- For Full Site Integration, StackPath will attempt to retrieve the relevant DNS records for your website; however, in some cases, StackPath may not be able to retrieve the records. In this case, you must add or upload these records.
- To learn more, see Create a DNS Record for an Existing DNS Zone.
Step 2: Verify your site's integration
After you create a site, StackPath recommends that you verify that the integration was successful.
To learn more, see Verify and Troubleshoot a CDN Integration.
Step 3: Configure your site's cache settings
After you create a site, the StackPath CDN comes with predefined cache configurations that will accelerate the delivery of your site.
To access cache settings:
- In the StackPath Control Portal, in the left-side navigation, click Sites.
- Locate and select the newly created site.
- In the left-side navigation, click CDN.
- Review the options under Cache Handling and Client Browser Policy to optimize and accelerate your site delivery:
| Option | Description |
| Lifetime (Set expiration time) |
In the CDN screen, under Cache Handling, you can use the Lifetime option to set an expiration time for assets cached on the CDN to reduce the number of calls to your server. Additionally, this action will increase the number of times that assets are served from the cache. Before you update this option, consider the following statements:
Review the following options:
To customize the TTL for specific pages and file extensions, see Create, Manage, and Validate Custom CDN EdgeRules. |
| Query String Control (Set query string behavior) |
In the CDN screen, under Cache Handling, you can use the Query String Control option to configure how StackPath will treat URLs that have a query string portion. A query string is a string of text that is added to the URL of a request to modify behavior on the server, which allows for different content to be served to different clients or users based on how the requested originated. For example, a query string can tell the server that a link was clicked from within a "Members Only" area of a site. Or, a query string can tell the server the region or locale of the user to server location-specific content. A query string portion is a series of keyword/value pairs represented by &x=y that comes after a question mark ( ? ) in a URL. A correctly configured query string caching behavior can result in a better cache hit ratio, which will improve performance. Review the following options:
To learn more, see Review Cache Handling Settings for CDN. |
| Browser Cache TTL (Set browser cache TTL) |
In the CDN screen, under Client Browser Policy, you can use the Browser Cache TTL option to instruct your visitor's browser to cache a resource. The browser will load resources from its local cache until that time is expired. A high browser cache TTL will accelerate the website page loads for your repeat visitors.
To learn more, see Review Cache Handling Settings for CDN. |
| GZIP Compression (Set GZIP Compression) |
In the CDN screen, under Cache Handling, you can use the GZIP Compression option to compress files for faster network transfers. GZIP compression is a standard practice to provide smaller file sizes which will load faster for your website users. StackPath recommends a compression level of 6. To learn more, see Review Cache Handling Settings for CDN. |
Related documentation
After you create a site, review the following documents to help you make additional configurations to your site: