Can Cloudflare block the Google re-index?

I just wanted to submit an URL for re-indexing and Search Console threw me a HTTP 403 error, blocked due to access forbidden. Our site is behind Cloudflare and the DDOS protection is on, because of an ongoing attack.

Can The Cloudfalre protection cause a removal of our URLs from the Google Index? If Google does not reach the URLs then I believe it will hurt our SEO. What is the solution here?

agostino2023 said:

If Google does not reach the URLs then I believe it will hurt our SEO.

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yeah, google don't like broken / inaccessible links, I think they'll remove it.

agostino2023 said:

What is the solution here?

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no idea to be honest, I'm not tech-savvy. Maybe someone else can help...

agostino2023 said:

Can The Cloudfalre protection cause a removal of our URLs from the Google Index?

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If you are not paying premium for Cloudflare, know that it will absolutely destroy your site SEO without even meaning to.

agostino2023 said:

I just wanted to submit an URL for re-indexing and Search Console threw me a HTTP 403 error, blocked due to access forbidden. Our site is behind Cloudflare and the DDOS protection is on, because of an ongoing attack.

Can The Cloudfalre protection cause a removal of our URLs from the Google Index? If Google does not reach the URLs then I believe it will hurt our SEO. What is the solution here?

Click to expand...

You when you enable protection first study a little how to allow bots, and then enable protection. This way you will ruin the site.

Go to the Security -> WAF tab
Create a rule where you select Field - Known Bots and in the list of actions select Skip (check all the checkboxes that appear).
All bots will pass to your site.

If you want to skip only Google, you need to select not "Known Bots" but "IP Source Address" and then "is in list" in the rule and create a list where you can add all Google IPs.

create waf rule -> enable known bot -> skip

Your index will be deleted. Please allow Googlebot IP.