Subject: Why is my site served from California when I am in London?

Direct Response

Hi, thanks for pointing this out. Normally, Cloudflare serves content from the data center closest to you. However, in some situations you may see requests served from a distant location such as California:

1. If the local edge doesn’t yet have the resource cached, the request can be routed elsewhere temporarily.
2. Some testing tools or resolvers may use routes that go through U.S.-based nodes or proxies.
3. The IP you are checking might correspond to an origin fetch or log that shows a different POP.

Thought Process

Cloudflare uses Anycast to serve traffic globally. Usually, you will connect to the nearest POP. But routing policies, cache misses, or testing methods can sometimes cause connections to appear from another POP. It does not mean your site is always served from there.

Tools Used

• curl -v — to check CF-Cache-Status, CF-Ray, and POP location codes.
• Cloudflare Analytics / Logs — to see real POPs serving traffic.
• traceroute / mtr — to validate unusual routing paths.