Background From my understanding, http://mywebsite.com/image.jpg, can help the ranking of http://mywebsite.com in a search engine, such as Google (obviously the search engine of primary concern). So, SEO-wise, moving an image to http://whatever-cdn.com/my-account/image.jpg is bad. A popular solution is to use a CNAME record, such as http://cdn.mywebsite.com, so that image.jpg can be accessed at http://cdn.mywebsite.com/image.jpg. The question Does http://cdn.mywebsite.com/image.jpg rank as effectively as http://mywebsite.com/image.jpg ? Does it help boost the main http://mywebsite.com ? Or, does it rank independently because it is a subdomain? Is there another option (a way to use a CDN without sacrificing ranking)?