Cloud Provider

What is Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The largest cloud platform — the infrastructure a huge share of the web, including many SaaS products, runs on.

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Overview

Amazon Web Services is Amazon's cloud computing division and the largest public cloud provider by market share. It offers hundreds of services covering compute, storage, databases, networking, security and machine learning, on a pay-as-you-go model.

For most businesses AWS is invisible plumbing, but it is load-bearing plumbing. How a site is hosted, cached and served on AWS directly affects performance, uptime and Core Web Vitals — all of which feed into SEO and user experience.

What they do

AWS provides on-demand infrastructure and managed services: virtual servers, containers and serverless compute, object and block storage, managed databases, a global CDN and edge network, plus security, networking and AI services. It is also a major host for AI workloads and an investor in Anthropic.

  • Compute: EC2, ECS, Lambda and container services
  • Storage and databases: S3, RDS, DynamoDB and more
  • CloudFront CDN and Route 53 DNS for global delivery
  • A backbone for AI, analytics and enterprise workloads

Why they matter for your site

Hosting decisions on AWS shape page speed, time to first byte and reliability. A well-architected setup with a CDN, sensible caching and the right regions improves Core Web Vitals and crawl efficiency; a poor one silently drags down rankings and conversions.

How REO Rank works with their platform

We design and deploy client software and websites on AWS, using CloudFront and edge caching for fast global delivery, infrastructure-as-code for repeatable environments, and monitoring so performance regressions get caught before they hurt SEO. This is core to our cloud infrastructure and DevOps work.

Why it matters

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud-computing platform, providing on-demand infrastructure and services — compute, storage, databases, networking, AI and hundreds more — that a huge share of the internet runs on. It matters because cloud infrastructure is the foundation modern applications are built on, and AWS pioneered and still leads the market, so much of the web (and many of the tools SEOs and marketers use) is hosted on it. For anyone building or running web applications, AWS is one of the default infrastructure choices, and understanding cloud infrastructure is increasingly part of technical web literacy.

  • The world's largest cloud-computing platform
  • Provides on-demand compute, storage, databases, networking, AI and more
  • A huge share of the internet and many web tools run on it

What it provides

AWS offers a vast catalogue of services covering essentially every infrastructure need: compute (EC2 virtual servers, Lambda serverless functions, containers), storage (S3 object storage and more), managed databases, networking and content delivery, plus higher-level services for AI/ML, analytics and much else. Its model is on-demand and pay-as-you-go — you provision what you need and scale up or down — which removed the need to buy and manage physical servers. Its breadth and reliability are its strengths; its trade-offs are complexity (the sheer number of services and the expertise to run them well) and cost management (un-optimised cloud spend can balloon), which is why cloud architecture and cost discipline are real skills.

  • A vast catalogue: EC2, Lambda, S3, managed databases, networking, AI/ML
  • On-demand, pay-as-you-go — provision and scale without buying servers
  • Strengths: breadth and reliability; trade-offs: complexity and cost management
  • Running it well requires real cloud-architecture expertise

In practice

For web and application teams, AWS (or a competitor like Google Cloud or Azure) is where infrastructure lives — hosting applications, storing data and assets, running databases and delivering content globally. Doing it well means the disciplines of good cloud infrastructure: infrastructure-as-code for reliability and reproducibility, cost optimisation (right-sizing, autoscaling, spend monitoring) so bills do not balloon, and resilience and observability so systems stay up and visible. AWS's power is that it can support anything from a small site to global-scale applications; its cost is the expertise required to architect and operate it well. For most, the choice among the big cloud providers comes down to needs, existing ecosystem and team familiarity.

  • Where applications, data, databases and content delivery are hosted
  • Run it well with infrastructure-as-code, cost optimisation and observability
  • Scales from small sites to global applications
  • Choice among AWS/Google Cloud/Azure depends on needs and team familiarity

Common questions

Amazon Web Services (AWS) — questions

Straight answers on how this fits your marketing and build.

Does my choice of cloud host affect SEO?
Indirectly but meaningfully. Hosting influences page speed, time to first byte and uptime, which affect Core Web Vitals, crawl efficiency and user experience. A well-architected AWS setup with a CDN and caching supports rankings; a slow, misconfigured one undermines them.
Do I need AWS specifically, or will any host do?
Any solid host can work. AWS is the widest and most mature option and often the right choice for custom SaaS, but for simpler sites a managed platform like Vercel can be faster to run. We pick based on the workload rather than defaulting to one provider.
What is AWS used for?
Cloud infrastructure — hosting applications, storing data and assets, running databases, delivering content globally, and providing higher-level services like AI/ML and analytics. It provides on-demand, pay-as-you-go compute, storage and networking, so a huge share of the internet and many web tools run on it rather than on self-managed physical servers.
Why is cloud cost management a concern with AWS?
Because its on-demand, pay-as-you-go model means un-optimised usage — oversized resources, idle services, inefficient architecture — can make bills balloon quickly. Running AWS well requires cost discipline (right-sizing, autoscaling, spend monitoring) alongside good architecture, which is why cloud cost optimisation is a genuine, valued skill rather than an afterthought.

Still have questions? Talk to a specialist