SEO Checklist for a New Website Launch: 25 Checks Before You Go Live

Before a new website goes live, check that search engines can crawl it, every page has a unique title and description, old URLs redirect correctly, pages load fast on mobile and analytics is tracking. Most launch problems are simple: a leftover “noindex” tag, a missing redirect or a broken sitemap. This checklist covers the 25 checks we run before and after every launch.

Quick answer: remove noindex and staging blocks, test redirects, set titles and descriptions, submit the sitemap, check speed and mobile, confirm analytics, then monitor Search Console for the first few weeks.

Crawling and indexing

1. Remove noindex tags. Staging sites are often set to noindex. Make sure the live site is indexable.
2. Check robots.txt. Confirm it does not block important pages, CSS or JavaScript.
3. Use HTTPS everywhere. Every page should load securely, and HTTP should redirect to HTTPS.
4. Pick one domain version. Redirect www to non-www, or the reverse, so only one version exists.
5. Set canonical tags. Each page should point to its own preferred URL.
6. Create an XML sitemap. Include only live, indexable pages that return a 200 status.
7. Return real 404s. Missing pages should return a 404 status, not a 200 with an error message.

Redirects (for redesigns and migrations)

1. Map every old URL to its closest new page in a spreadsheet.
2. Use 301 redirects, not 302, for permanent moves.
3. Avoid redirect chains and loops. One hop from old URL to new URL.
4. Update internal links to point straight to new URLs instead of through redirects.

On-page SEO

1. Unique title tags of roughly 50 to 60 characters, with the main keyword near the start.
2. Unique meta descriptions of roughly 140 to 160 characters that encourage clicks.
3. One H1 per page that matches the page topic.
4. Logical heading structure with H2s and H3s that outline the content.
5. Descriptive image alt text and compressed images.
6. Clean, readable URLs with words, not IDs.

Structured data and AI search

1. Add relevant schema, such as Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, Article or Product, and test it with Google’s Rich Results Test.
2. Put key content in the HTML. Important text should not depend on JavaScript, so Google and AI tools can read it. See our JavaScript SEO guide.

Speed and mobile

1. Test Core Web Vitals with PageSpeed Insights on mobile and desktop.
2. Check mobile layouts on real phones, including menus and forms.

Tracking

1. Install analytics and confirm it records visits on the live domain.
2. Track conversions such as form submissions, calls and purchases.
3. Verify Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for the live domain.

Launch day

1. Submit the sitemap in Search Console and request indexing for your key pages with URL Inspection.

After launch: first 4 weeks

• Crawl the live site for 404s, redirect issues and missing titles.
• Check the Search Console “Pages” report every few days.
• Compare traffic and rankings for key pages with your pre-launch benchmark.
• Fix issues quickly, especially on pages that bring leads or sales.

Pre-launch vs post-launch checks

When	Focus	Tools
Before launch (staging)	Metadata, schema, speed, redirects map	Crawler, PageSpeed Insights, Rich Results Test
Launch day	Indexing, HTTPS, sitemap, tracking	Search Console, analytics real-time view
First 4 weeks	Errors, rankings, traffic	Search Console, crawler, rank tracking

Get an expert launch check

Our SEO audit covers every check above for $149, or $349 with fixes. If you are redesigning, follow our website redesign SEO checklist too, and see how our website redesign services protect your rankings.

From our projects: Before every attors.com release we check prerendered HTML, canonicals, sitemaps and structured data on a test server, the same checks we run for client launches.

What the research says: If any URLs change at launch, Google recommends permanent server-side redirects kept for at least a year. (Source: Google Search Central on site moves.)

If the site is live and still missing from search results weeks after launch, our guide to why a website is not showing up on Google helps you find the cause.