Cloudflare Cache Warmer — n8n Workflow

Problem

Recipe pages fall out of Cloudflare's edge cache between human visits. When Googlebot crawls a cold page, it hits WordPress directly — full PHP/plugin execution, slow response. Google deprioritizes slow pages and marks them "Crawled - currently not indexed."

Solution

Scheduled n8n workflow that fetches the sitemap daily and hits every recipe URL to keep Cloudflare's cache warm. Googlebot always gets a fast cached response.

Architecture

Schedule Trigger — runs once daily (off-peak, e.g. 4:00 AM ET)
HTTP Request — fetch https://plantbasedsoutherner.com/sitemap_index.xml
XML Parse — extract child sitemap URLs from the index
Loop — for each child sitemap:
- HTTP Request — fetch the child sitemap XML
- XML Parse — extract all `` URLs
Loop — for each URL:
- HTTP Request (GET) — hit the URL (this warms the cache)
- Wait — small delay (1-2 seconds) between requests to avoid hammering the server on cold hits
Google Chat Notification — post summary to webadmin space: total URLs warmed, any errors

Design Notes

Use the n8n Loop node (not Split In Batches) to serialize requests and avoid overloading Apache workers
The HTTP Request to warm cache only needs a GET — no need to process the response body
Consider a 1-2 second delay between requests so cold misses don't stack up concurrent PHP workers
Edge TTL is currently set to 8 days, so daily warming keeps everything well within window
As recipes grow, workflow scales automatically since it reads from the sitemap

Validation

After first run, spot-check 3-4 recipe URLs in browser DevTools → Network → cf-cache-status should be HIT
Monitor Google Search Console "Crawled - currently not indexed" count over the following 2-4 weeks — should decrease

Open Questions

Confirm best time of day for the schedule (4 AM ET?)
Decide whether to warm ALL sitemap URLs or filter to just recipe/post URLs
Should errors (timeouts, 5xx) trigger a separate alert or just log in the summary?

Future Enhancements

Add a check: if cf-cache-status is already HIT, skip the URL (reduces unnecessary requests as traffic grows)
Track cache hit/miss ratio over time via a simple counter in pbs-hub

...sent from Jenny & Travis

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