If we've recommended Cloudflare for your website and you're wondering what it actually does, this guide is for you.
Cloudflare is a service that sits between your website and the people visiting it. It can help make your website faster, more secure and better protected from unwanted traffic.
Instead of every visitor connecting directly to your hosting server, website traffic passes through Cloudflare first. Cloudflare can then filter unwanted requests, help protect against attacks, and deliver some of your website's content from its worldwide network.
You don't need to move your website to Cloudflare. Your website remains hosted with us and you continue to manage your hosting through cPanel as normal.
What does Cloudflare actually do?
There are three main reasons we recommend Cloudflare.
1. It adds another layer of security
Cloudflare can inspect website traffic before it reaches your hosting server.
This means it can block or challenge unwanted visitors, bots and other suspicious traffic before they have an opportunity to place unnecessary load on your website.
Cloudflare also provides protection against DDoS attacks. These are attacks where very large numbers of requests are deliberately sent to a website in an attempt to overwhelm it.
Importantly, simply adding your website to Cloudflare is only the starting point. Cloudflare has security settings and rules which can be adjusted to suit your website.
For example, we recommend a baseline set of five security rules which can:
- Allow trusted services such as Google and Bing.
- Allow payment providers, APIs and other services your website needs.
- Block some obviously unwanted automated traffic.
- Block countries where you don't expect legitimate visitors, if appropriate.
- Allow visitors from your normal markets through without an additional check.
- Ask Cloudflare to carry out an additional security check on other traffic when necessary.
This gives you much more control over the traffic reaching your website.
2. It can make your website faster
Cloudflare has servers in locations around the world. It can keep copies of parts of your website, such as images, stylesheets and other static files, on this network.
When somebody visits your website, Cloudflare may be able to provide these files from its own network rather than requesting everything from your hosting server each time.
This is known as caching.
It can improve loading times, particularly for visitors who are located further away from your hosting server, while also reducing the amount of work your hosting account has to do.
3. It reduces unnecessary traffic reaching your hosting account
Every request to your website uses some resources, even if the request is coming from a bot rather than a genuine visitor.
By caching content and filtering unwanted traffic before it reaches the server, Cloudflare can reduce the amount of unnecessary work your hosting account has to handle.
This can be particularly helpful for websites receiving large amounts of bot traffic, repeated automated requests or sudden traffic spikes.
How does Cloudflare work?
The easiest way to think about Cloudflare is as a protective layer in front of your website.
- Somebody tries to visit your website.
- The request goes to Cloudflare first.
- Cloudflare checks the request against your security settings.
- Cloudflare may provide cached content directly from its own network.
- Requests that need to reach your website are then passed to your Maxer hosting server.
Your website itself doesn't move. Your files, databases and hosting account remain on our servers.
You also continue to use cPanel to manage your website and hosting in the normal way.
Who should use Cloudflare?
We recommend Cloudflare for most normal public websites.
This includes:
- Business websites.
- WordPress and other content management systems.
- Online shops and ecommerce websites.
- Blogs and news websites.
- Websites receiving significant bot or crawler traffic.
- Websites which have experienced attacks or unusual traffic.
- Busy websites which would benefit from reducing unnecessary server load.
- Websites with visitors in several different countries.
Even a small local business website can benefit. You don't need to be running a large or high-traffic website to make use of Cloudflare's security features.
Do I need to be experiencing an attack to use Cloudflare?
No. In fact, it's generally better to configure Cloudflare before you have a problem.
Cloudflare isn't only an emergency tool for websites experiencing a DDoS attack. It can provide an additional layer of protection during normal day-to-day operation and help reduce unwanted traffic reaching your hosting account.
If an attack does happen later, having your website already running through Cloudflare also means additional protections can be introduced much more quickly.
Is Cloudflare difficult to set up?
For most websites, the initial setup is fairly straightforward.
You create a Cloudflare account, add your domain name and change your domain's nameservers so that Cloudflare can manage your website traffic.
Once Cloudflare is active, there are additional security and performance settings which can be configured.
We recommend using our standard Cloudflare security rules as a starting point rather than simply enabling Cloudflare and leaving all of the settings at their defaults.
If you're not comfortable making these changes yourself, our support team can help.
Will Cloudflare affect my email?
Normally, no.
Cloudflare is used to handle your website traffic. Services such as email aren't normally passed through Cloudflare's website proxy.
When setting up Cloudflare, it's therefore important that your existing DNS records are copied correctly, particularly your MX records and other records used by your email service.
If these records are configured correctly, your email continues to work as normal.
What about FTP, cPanel and other services?
Cloudflare's normal proxy is designed primarily for website traffic.
Services such as email and FTP aren't normally passed through the Cloudflare proxy. You can continue to use them in the normal way.
You can also continue to access and manage your Maxer hosting account through cPanel.
Will Cloudflare hide my server's IP address?
For website addresses which are correctly routed through Cloudflare, visitors connect to Cloudflare rather than directly to your web server.
This can make it more difficult for somebody to attack the web server directly instead of going through Cloudflare's protection.
However, it's important to configure your DNS records carefully. If other DNS records publicly point directly to the same server, they may reveal its IP address and allow somebody to bypass Cloudflare.
For this reason, we recommend reviewing your DNS records as part of the Cloudflare setup.
When might Cloudflare not be suitable?
Cloudflare is suitable for most normal websites, but there are some situations where a different or more specialised service may be needed.
For example:
- Websites which primarily distribute or stream large video or audio files may be better suited to a specialist media hosting or streaming provider.
- Websites which primarily provide large file downloads may be better suited to a specialist file delivery or storage service.
- Some specialist applications or integrations may need direct access to the hosting server.
- Websites which rely heavily on personalised or constantly changing content may not benefit from caching as much as other websites.
- Some APIs, payment systems or other third-party services may need to be specifically allowed through your Cloudflare security rules.
Standard web hosting is primarily designed for hosting websites rather than acting as a large-scale video, audio or file distribution service. There are specialist providers designed specifically for these purposes, often with their own networks for efficiently delivering large files to users.
If your website simply embeds video, audio or other content hosted by a third-party service, this normally doesn't present the same issue because the large files themselves are being delivered by that provider rather than from your web hosting account.
If you're unsure whether Cloudflare is suitable for your website, please ask us before making any changes.
Do I need a paid Cloudflare plan?
For many websites, Cloudflare's Free plan is a very good starting point.
It includes useful security, DDoS protection, caching and performance features and is suitable for many normal business websites.
Cloudflare also offers paid plans with additional security and performance features. These can be useful for busier websites, ecommerce websites or businesses with more advanced requirements.
You don't need to purchase a paid plan simply to start benefiting from Cloudflare.
How do I use Cloudflare with my Maxer hosting?
Your website remains hosted with Maxer. Cloudflare is added in front of the website as an additional security and performance layer.
The basic process is:
- Create a Cloudflare account.
- Add your domain name to Cloudflare.
- Check that Cloudflare has imported your existing DNS records correctly.
- Change your domain's nameservers to the nameservers provided by Cloudflare.
- Wait for Cloudflare to confirm that the domain is active.
- Configure the recommended security and performance settings.
Once this is complete, you still manage your website, files, databases and email through your Maxer hosting account as before.
What should I do after enabling Cloudflare?
Enabling Cloudflare is the first step. We also recommend configuring its security settings so that Cloudflare understands what traffic your website normally expects.
We've developed a set of five recommended Cloudflare security rules as a starting point for most websites.
These rules tell Cloudflare:
- Which trusted bots and services should always be allowed.
- Which obviously unwanted requests should be blocked.
- Whether there are countries you want to block.
- Which countries most of your genuine visitors come from.
- How to handle visitors from everywhere else.
Please see our guide: How to configure our recommended Cloudflare security rules.
In summary
For most website owners, the important thing to know is that Cloudflare adds an extra layer between the public Internet and your hosting account.
When it's properly configured, it can help:
- Protect your website from unwanted traffic, bots and attacks.
- Reduce unnecessary server load by stopping some unwanted requests before they reach your hosting account.
- Improve website performance by serving suitable content through Cloudflare's worldwide network.
- Give you more control over which traffic is allowed, blocked or checked.
We recommend Cloudflare for most public websites, even if the website isn't currently experiencing an attack or performance problem.
If you're unsure whether Cloudflare is suitable for your website, please contact our support team. We'll be happy to advise you.
Updated by WR on 17/09/2026
