Following a successful Alpha phase, the next-generation Global CDN (GCDN) is now entering Beta. The new GCDN introduces bot protection by default — meaning sites that migrate will automatically benefit from bot detection and mitigation without any additional configuration or cost.
What's included
- Automated bot detection and scoring — Incoming traffic is automatically evaluated and scored, with managed challenges issued to suspicious requests.
- Verified bot identification — Legitimate bots (such as search engine crawlers) are recognized and allowed through while unverified bots are challenged.
Action Required
Eligible sites will see a banner at the site level in the Pantheon dashboard. To participate in the Beta:
- Look for the GCDN Beta banner on your eligible site.
- Click the banner and follow the guided steps.
- Update your DNS records to point to the new GCDN infrastructure.
During the Beta, DNS-01 TXT record validation is the only supported method for domain verification. You will need to add TXT records to your DNS provider to verify domain ownership.
Known limitations
- Traffic metrics — The traffic metrics page in the Pantheon dashboard will not reflect GCDN Beta traffic during the initial Beta period. Traffic metrics for migrated sites will be restored in a future update.
Eligibility
The following configurations are not eligible for the GCDN Beta at this time:
- Sites using Advanced Global CDN (AGCDN), WAF, or Security Starter packages
- Sites with Multi Zone Failover enabled
- Sites using Custom Certificates
More information
To learn more about the new GCDN Beta with Bot Protection, see our beta documentation page on our docs site.