Adobe Experience Manager Tutorials

Sunday, 8 June 2025

Unlocking the Power of Fastly CDN with Adobe Solutions

When it comes to delivering fast, secure, and reliable digital experiences, a robust content delivery network (CDN) is key. Adobe leverages Fastly—a Varnish-based CDN—to provide high-performance caching and content delivery capabilities that go beyond standard configurations, including those offered by custom setups like Cloudflare.

Here’s a closer look at what Fastly offers and how it integrates with Adobe solutions:

Performance-Driven Caching

Fastly’s Varnish-based infrastructure enables effective caching of site pages, assets, stylesheets, and more directly within backend data centers. This reduces bandwidth consumption, improves load times, and lowers infrastructure costs. With support for custom VCL (Varnish Configuration Language) snippets, developers can fine-tune caching logic and tailor responses based on specific request parameters.

Enhanced Security Features

Beyond performance, Fastly provides built-in security features such as a Web Application Firewall (WAF) and DDoS protection. These help safeguard Adobe-hosted applications and ensure uptime and resilience against attacks.

Considerations for Custom CDN and WAF Integration

If you're using a custom CDN (Bring Your Own CDN - BYOCDN) or an external WAF, specific configurations are necessary to ensure cache purging works as expected. This includes allowing PURGE requests to reach Fastly and ensuring all required headers are included for accurate cache invalidation.

GeoIP Services for Targeted Content Delivery

Fastly supports GeoIP-based configurations, making it easier to serve region-specific content or enforce geographic restrictions. This is particularly useful for personalization or regulatory compliance.

SSL Management Made Easy

For Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure, Fastly includes SSL certificates as part of its service. If needed, teams can bring their own SSL certificate—though it may involve additional costs.

Image Optimization Capabilities

To further enhance site performance, Fastly offers image optimization features that compress and resize images on the fly. This not only speeds up load times but also cuts down on data transfer usage.

Diagnostic and Testing Tools

Fastly provides helpful tools for testing and verifying CDN behavior, such as checking headers between your origin and live environments. These tools are essential for troubleshooting and ensuring optimal content delivery.

Final Thoughts

Fastly is a powerful, flexible CDN that integrates seamlessly with Adobe's cloud infrastructure. While it supports layered setups with other CDNs, achieving optimal performance requires careful configuration—especially when it comes to caching logic, purging, and security settings.

With the right setup, Fastly can significantly boost both performance and security for your Adobe-powered digital experiences.

Purging Fastly CDN Cache When Using a WAF or BYOCDN

Fastly CDN and Adobe This article provides insight into how to configure cache purging for AEM as a Cloud Service when using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) or a custom Content Delivery Network solution (BYOCDN). Understanding how to navigate these complex setups is crucial for maintaining efficient content delivery.

AEM As Cloud CDN Configurations - Watch the video

Unlocking Efficiency with the New AEM Site Optimizer: Features and Benefits

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) continues to evolve, and one of the latest enhancements that’s generating buzz among digital marketers and developers alike is the AEM Site Optimizer. Designed to maximize site performance, SEO, and content efficiency, this new tool is a major leap toward smarter web management and optimization at scale.

In this post, we’ll take a look at what the AEM Site Optimizer is, its core features, and how it helps teams create faster, more engaging, and search-friendly experiences.

The feature is available on AEM sites, Edge, Adobe MS [Licensed]

What is AEM Site Optimizer?

The AEM Site Optimizer is a built-in solution within Adobe Experience Manager that provides real-time insights and recommendations to enhance the quality and performance of your digital properties. It’s built for content authors, marketers, and developers to identify and fix optimization issues across AEM-managed sites—without needing to juggle third-party tools.

Think of it as your in-platform digital auditor, making it easier to ensure best practices are followed consistently across all your web pages.

Moto of site optimizer: Auto identify, Auto suggest, Auto optimize

Key Features

1. Page Performance Scoring

The Site Optimizer evaluates every published page and assigns a performance score based on factors like load time, responsiveness, and mobile usability. This scoring system helps teams quickly identify underperforming pages and prioritize improvements.

2. SEO Health Checks

Built-in SEO analysis checks for critical issues such as:

Missing or duplicate meta tags
Improper heading structure
Broken links
Incomplete alt text on images

Each issue is accompanied by actionable suggestions, making it easier to maintain strong SEO hygiene across the site.

3. Accessibility Insights

Site Optimizer runs accessibility scans to identify WCAG compliance issues. It flags problems like low contrast text, missing ARIA labels, and improper use of semantic elements—helping ensure your site is inclusive and accessible to all users.

4. Content Quality Analysis

From word count to readability and grammar, the optimizer checks content quality metrics that influence user engagement. It even highlights outdated or stale content, prompting teams to refresh or retire pages as needed.

5. Performance Dashboard

A unified dashboard visualizes metrics and issues across your site or specific sections. You can filter by severity, content type, or business segment—making it easier to spot patterns and focus efforts where they’ll have the most impact.

6. Automated Fix Suggestions

Where possible, AEM Site Optimizer offers automated or one-click fixes—especially for technical SEO or performance tweaks (like compressing large images or fixing broken links). This dramatically reduces manual workload for teams.

7. Integration with Workflows and Alerts

You can integrate insights into existing AEM workflows, assign issues to specific users or teams, and trigger alerts for high-priority problems. This keeps optimization embedded into your day-to-day publishing process.

Benefits for Teams

For Marketers: Improve discoverability and content effectiveness with SEO and content quality insights.
For Developers: Ensure technical best practices are met across templates and components.
For Content Authors: Easily identify content that needs updates or improvements—without needing to know code.
For Business Leaders: Gain visibility into site health and optimization progress with intuitive dashboards and reports.

Final Thoughts

The AEM Site Optimizer is a game-changer for teams managing complex web ecosystems. By bringing real-time analysis and optimization guidance directly into the AEM interface, it empowers organizations to proactively improve digital experiences—faster and more efficiently than ever before.

If your team is already using AEM, the Site Optimizer is a feature worth exploring deeply. It not only improves operational workflows but also enhances user experience, SEO rankings, and overall content ROI.

Want help implementing Site Optimizer or customizing it to your digital strategy? Reach out to your Adobe representative or partner agency to get started.