When the proxy makes things worse.
WHY IT CAN HAPPEN
An extra hop between visitor and server Uncached requests travelling further Optimisation features adding processing Development mode left enabled
FOR LOCAL VISITORS
If your visitors and your server are both in Nigeria, routing through Cloudflare may add latency rather than removing it, depending on where requests are handled.
CHECKING
Test from a location representative of your visitors, with and without the proxy.
Cloudflare analytics shows the cache hit ratio. A low ratio means most requests still reach us, with the extra hop and no caching benefit.
WHAT TO TRY
Confirm development mode is off Confirm static assets are actually being cached Enable server-side caching, which matters more than anything at the edge Disable Rocket Loader and minification, which add processing
IF IT REMAINS SLOWER
Set records to DNS only. You keep Cloudflare's DNS and lose the proxy.
That is a legitimate configuration and worth considering for a purely local audience.
THE HONEST POSITION
Cloudflare helps distant visitors most. For a local audience the benefit is filtering rather than speed.
