Bot‑Check Interstitials Can Drop Your Pages and Make Competitors Canonical
Google’s John Mueller says a security “are you a bot” screen that serves an interstitial to suspicious visitors can be indexed instead of your real content. When Google sees that page, it may treat your genuine pages as duplicates and promote a rival site as the canonical version, hurting your rankings. Check Search Console for duplicate‑canonical warnings and adjust your CDN or bot‑protection settings.