Should I run multiple IPFS nodes for my website?

Hello all,

Novice here. Firstly, I’m very fascinated about IPFS and the distributed web. I have a question now.

Background: I want to run my public website completely on IPFS. It’s a photo gallery with many hi-res image files.

What I’ve achieved so far: having one always-on node, putting files in it, attaching a domain name to it, and having a functioning website completely hosted on my node.

My question: What if I run a second node, placed on another building?
Is there any wisdom in doing this? Will it ‘improve’ stability and speed of my website?
If I run several of my own nodes, connected as peers, will it be good for high traffic?

My goal is to make my website totally running without me paying for any third-party service.
Let’s say I’m only willing to pay for the domain name, and the hardware and internet costs for the nodes.

Thanks in advance.

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Absolutely. Ensuring there’s a copy available in multiple locations will greatly impact the speed of discovery and download. Additionally with your personal nodes in the mix, they’ll also help share (if they have the data). Going further, if someone views your website over IPFS, a copy of the data is also re-served off their node (until garbage collection), which will help out a lot in high traffic scenarios.

Good luck on your adventure!

Thank you Discordian for your kind explanation and well wishes.

Could you elaborate on your point about data being re-served?
If a user opens my site with their browser (let’s say Chrome without extensions), will there be data being copied?

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Unfortunately without extensions the user will just be using an HTTP gateway, so no re-sharing will happen. If they had their own node and the companion app installed in their browser though, the node’s what’s retrieving the data, and it’ll help share that with the network (it’ll also be available offline for the user).