Your developer suggests putting the website behind a CDN such as Cloudflare. It is usually a good idea: pages load faster for visitors in Nicosia, London or Tel Aviv, and your server gets a shield against traffic peaks. But on 11 November 2026 Google published a guide to moving to a CDN because the first days of that move can go wrong in two ways. One makes your server slower. The other can quietly take your pages out of Google.
What a CDN does, in one minute
A CDN (content delivery network) keeps copies of your pages and images on servers around the world. A visitor gets the copy from the nearest one instead of travelling all the way to your hosting company. Your own server, the "origin", only answers when the CDN does not have a copy yet. That speed matters for sales and for your Core Web Vitals, which is why we often recommend it.
Why traffic to your server can jump after the switch
Google adjusts how fast it crawls your site by how quickly your server answers. Slow answers mean Google backs off; fast answers mean it speeds up. The moment your domain points to a CDN, everything looks much faster, so Googlebot starts asking for more pages.
The catch is that a new CDN starts empty. The first request for each page has to go back to your server to fetch it. Visitors mostly open the same few pages (home, menu, current offer), which get cached quickly. Google does the opposite: it walks through every product, every old article, every filter page. On a shop with thousands of URLs, your server can be busier in week one than it was before the CDN. If you are on cheap shared hosting, that can mean slow pages for real customers.
The bigger risk: blocking Google with "bot protection"
When someone sees a spike of automated traffic in the CDN dashboard, the natural reaction is to switch on the strongest bot protection or "I'm under attack" mode. Google's warning is clear: blanket rules treat all bots the same, including Googlebot. Googlebot cannot solve a CAPTCHA. It lands on a challenge page, sees a site that looks broken or closed, and slows down. Over time your pages, and your product listings in Google Shopping, start dropping out of search.
This is easy to miss because the site works perfectly when you open it on your phone. You only notice weeks later, when enquiries drop.
Five things to agree with your developer before the move
- Allow verified bots. Most CDNs and firewalls have a setting or managed rule that lets known, verified crawlers through while still filtering the rest. Make sure it is on before any strict mode.
- Block specific bots, not all bots. If a scraper is hammering the site, target that one by name or with your robots.txt, rather than challenging every automated visitor.
- Warm the cache first. Before switching all traffic, load your most visited pages, your current campaign or seasonal pages, and your main categories through the CDN at a gentle pace. With Black Friday and Christmas close, do this before the rush, not during it.
- Use a temporary brake, not a wall. If your server truly cannot cope, the CDN can answer Google with a "429" or "503" code (meaning "try again later") for a few hours, at most a day or two. Google treats that as a pause. A permanent block or challenge page is treated as a closed door.
- Pick a quiet week. Avoid launch days, sales and the week before a big event.
How to check that Google can still get in
After the move, open Google Search Console and look at Settings, then Crawl stats. A sudden rise in server errors, or in "blocked" responses, is the warning sign. Use the URL Inspection tool on your homepage and one product page and run a live test: if Google sees a challenge page instead of your content, the firewall is in the way. Repeat the check after any change to security settings, and keep an eye on the Pages report for a growing list of errors.
The short version
A CDN is worth it: faster pages, a calmer server, happier visitors. Just remember three things from Google's advice. Faster answers mean Google crawls more. The cache only protects you from the second visit onwards. And bot protection must let verified crawlers through. If you would like us to plan or check a CDN move for your site, get in touch and we will look at it with you.
- cdn
- technical seo
- googlebot
- website speed
- google search central
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