Customer domain SSLs - does it change the custom domain links stance now?

Ferguson

So with the ink on the new customer domain ssl certs barely dry, can we resurrect the question of custom domains and image links.

Does this mean it is now (from a CDN caching standpoint) equivalent when posting image links to use our customer domain (with https) and the smugmug links (with https)?

I.e. is there any reason for Smugmug to continue changing link names away from the custom domain in the get-a-link? And/or other links to images in galleries, etc?

I am not asking whether it is already done, the certs issues are still settling in, I am asking about the future philosophy -- in the past there were concerns, I think mostly around caching and SSL and CDN support.

Is that now moot?

What's the current thinking from Smugmug on the subject?

Is there still a good reason for SM to switch away from our domains?

Linwood

leftquark

The decision at the time was primarily a performance decision (improved caching, CDN, browser connection re-use, pre-fetching, etc), which still holds true with having photos served unified through photos.smugmug.com. Given that image load performance is important for visitor experience, and the fact that Google is starting to really care about mobile performance (and will start dropping SEO rankings if load times become slow), we'll continue to serve photos through photos.smugmug.com.

I'm still open to updating the Share Panel to provide links using the custom domain, though performance will be significantly slower and we'd need to message/warn you all accordingly. So far it's been very quiet on the topic: a few of you here on dgrin have asked for it but the majority of our pro/custom domain customers haven't asked for that. If that changes, we can bring it up again and raise the priority.

Ferguson

This may be another case of amnesia, but if the CDN's are now caching our https custom domain, why does it perform faster to use the photos.smugmug.com?