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Available by default on all stores, BigCommerce’s content delivery network manages your photos and other files for optimal site speed. However, your business may require additional features beyond our native CDN to manage, distribute, and protect your store’s content. In this chapter, we will discuss the advantages of using a third-party reverse proxy or CDN, the providers supported by BigCommerce, and the various factors to consider before deciding on an external proxy.

 

Benefits of a Third-Party Reverse Proxy

There are a wide range of reasons why you may want to use an external proxy or CDN in front of your store. Below is a list of features that are commonly included with a third-party reverse proxy provider:

  • Traffic visibility — Reverse proxies can capture and log the requests forwarded to your website. With this information, you can monitor incoming traffic and identify patterns in the content that is viewed.
  • Custom web application firewall (WAF) — A custom WAF will add an additional layer of security to your store’s traffic. This helps you in mitigating DDoS attacks, filtering out bot traffic, and ensuring that your store is PCI compliant beyond BigCommerce’s Attestation of PCI DSS.
  • Access management — Control who can access your store by setting up blocks for individual IP addresses or geolocations.
  • URL rewriting — Some third-party CDNs allow you to customize the URL path used for delivering your images and files. You can even serve content from a third-party website, such as a WordPress blog, from your store’s domain.
 

Supported Reverse Proxy Providers

BigCommerce maintains an up-to-date inventory of the connecting IP addresses from a select group of reverse proxy and CDN providers. These IP addresses are the origins of traffic after it has been forwarded from a client, and are marked as “trusted” when requesting store data. This ensures a complete connection between the reverse proxy and your store’s traffic.

Below is a list of all reverse proxy and CDN providers supported by BigCommerce:

Consequences of Using an Unsupported Proxy

It is important to use a supported proxy to ensure that information such as IP addresses are properly propagated through to payment gateways and audit logs generated on the BigCommerce end.

If you implement an unsupported proxy on your store, all traffic will appear to come from a handful of unrecognized IP addresses. BigCommerce’s DDoS protection measures may flag this behavior as malicious, which can have a negative impact on your store’s performance.

Payment providers with fraud management tools often look for mismatched or repeating IP addresses associated with transactions. An untrusted proxy can potentially trigger the provider’s fraud preventative measures, leading to failed orders and possibly additional merchant fees.

If you choose to implement an unsupported proxy or manage a headless storefront , see our Dev Center for information on Trusted Proxy enablement . This feature allows you to use a custom proxy to help mitigate connection issues during periods of high traffic by ensuring information sent through your store is recognized and approved.

 

Factors to Consider

While there are several reasons you may want to implement your own reverse proxy or CDN solution, there are some considerations you should take into account:

  • While BigCommerce maintains a relationship with the proxy providers listed above, we do not provide technical support or configuration assistance. You will need to work with the provider or an agency partner to implement and maintain the solution in your store.
  • It can be expensive to implement a CDN or proxy with all of your desired features. On top of that, the provider may charge additional fees if your traffic exceeds a certain threshold.
  • Setting up a proxy incorrectly will cause store performance issues.
Improperly configured DNS records often lead to visitors being unable to view your store or successfully check out.
  • The addition of an external proxy can make it difficult to resolve issues with your store. Our Technical Support team cannot identify and troubleshoot issues on the proxy end.
  • We recommend minimizing any customizations to how store content is cached. BigCommerce optimizes caching by default, and adding complexity can interfere with how your content is delivered to individual shoppers.
 

Conclusion

Reverse proxies and content delivery networks allow your customers to quickly and securely access the content in your store. BigCommerce’s CDN optimizes your site speed around the world, but a reverse proxy or CDN from a supported provider can enhance your store’s performance and security, and help you to leave a good impression on your valued customers every time they visit your store.

To learn more about optimizing the content on your store, see the following resources: