Website launch SEO checklist
Use it before the new site goes live, on launch day, and in the weeks after. Most launch problems come from settings left over from the test site.
www.rrwebservices.com/checklists/website-launch-checklist/Checked November 9, 2026
Website launch SEO checklist
Use it before the new site goes live, on launch day, and in the weeks after. Most launch problems come from settings left over from the test site.
Start here: the 10 steps that matter most
If you only have an hour or two, do these first. The full list, with how to check each one, follows.
- Give every page its own titleNo two pages share a title; each says what the page offers, usually with the brand at the end.
- Set canonical tagsEach page has a self-referencing canonical with the final, https address.
- Set up analytics and Search Console before launchAnalytics recording on all pages; Search Console verified for the final domain (a Domain property covers http, https, www and non-www).
- Remove every noindex left from the test siteNo noindex in robots meta tags, X-Robots-Tag headers or CMS settings on live pages.
- Replace a test robots.txtrobots.txt allows crawling of public pages and lists the sitemap.
- Serve one version of the site over HTTPSAll three other versions redirect with a 301 to the main one, in one step.
- Redirect old addresses if this replaces an old siteEvery old address with traffic or links redirects to its closest new page.
- Submit the XML sitemapSitemap submitted in Google Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools) and listed in robots.txt, with only live, canonical, 200 pages.
- Test every form, phone link and paymentA test enquiry from a phone and a computer arrived; tap-to-call works; payments go through.
- Watch Search Console’s page indexing reportEvery “not indexed” reason reviewed weekly; real problems fixed.
How to use this checklist
Every step has a priority (Start here, Important, When you have time), who usually does it (You or a developer) and a rough time. Done when says what finished looks like, How to check tells you how to confirm it yourself, and Common mistake is the slip we see most. Tick the box when a step passes its check.
Steps marked with a free tool can be checked in seconds at rrwebservices.com/tools/. Sources are numbered at the end; every fact was checked against them on November 9, 2026.
Your score: ______ of 22 steps done Date: ______________
Before launch: pages
Google uses the title element most often for the title link. Unique, descriptive titles help people pick your page.
Done when: No two pages share a title; each says what the page offers, usually with the brand at the end.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Crawl the test site, or run key pages through the SEO Health Dashboard.
Common mistake: Every page titled “Home | Brand” from the template.
Google may use it as the snippet when it describes the page better than the text does.
Done when: Key pages have a unique description of about 1 to 2 sentences.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: The SEO Health Dashboard shows length and duplicates.
Common mistake: The same description site-wide.
A clear outline helps readers, screen readers and search engines.
Done when: One H1 per page, then H2 and H3 without skipping levels.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: The SEO Health Dashboard shows the outline.
Common mistake: Headings used to make text big.
It describes images for screen readers and image search.
Done when: Content images have descriptive alt text; decorative ones have alt="".
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: The Accessibility Checker lists images without alt text.
Common mistake: Alt text stuffed with keywords.
It tells search engines and AI tools what each page is.
Done when: Organization or LocalBusiness on the homepage; Service, Product, Article or BreadcrumbList where they fit; no errors.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Use the Schema Generator’s check or Google’s Rich Results Test on each template.
Common mistake: Markup for things not visible on the page.
Google renders JavaScript but recommends server-side or pre-rendering, since not all bots run it.
Done when: Main text and links appear in View Source.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: The Render Analyzer compares raw and rendered HTML.
Common mistake: Content loaded only by client-side scripts.
They tell Google the preferred address when the same page can load at several.
Done when: Each page has a self-referencing canonical with the final, https address.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: The SEO Health Dashboard shows the canonical.
Common mistake: Canonicals pointing to the test domain, or all to the homepage.
Google’s Core Web Vitals call a page “good” at Largest Contentful Paint up to 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint up to 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift up to 0.1, measured at the 75th percentile of visits.
Done when: Key templates meet those numbers in a lab test on a mobile profile.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Run PageSpeed Insights on each template; the HTML & CSS Analyzer finds heavy code.
Common mistake: Testing only on a fast office computer.
Labels, contrast and keyboard use affect real visitors and legal risk.
Done when: No errors for missing labels, contrast or names on buttons in key templates.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Run the Accessibility Checker on each template.
Common mistake: Leaving it until after launch.
You need the first days of data to spot problems.
Done when: Analytics recording on all pages; Search Console verified for the final domain (a Domain property covers http, https, www and non-www).
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Open a page and see it in analytics in real time.
Common mistake: Verifying only the www or only the non-www version.
Launch day
Test sites are often set to noindex. If it stays, the new site disappears from Google. Google also says a noindex in the original HTML can stop it from running your JavaScript.
Done when: No noindex in robots meta tags, X-Robots-Tag headers or CMS settings on live pages.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Run the homepage and a few templates through the SEO Health Dashboard.
Common mistake: A CMS “discourage search engines” setting still ticked.
A test site’s “User-agent: * / Disallow: /” blocks the whole site from crawling.
Done when: robots.txt allows crawling of public pages and lists the sitemap.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Open yoursite.com/robots.txt; run the Robots.txt Validator.
Common mistake: Disallowing CSS or JavaScript files Google needs to render pages.
User-agent: * Disallow: /cart/ Disallow: /account/ Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
http://, https://, www and non-www should all end up at one address, so links and signals aren’t split.
Done when: All three other versions redirect with a 301 to the main one, in one step.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Type each version in the browser; the .htaccess Analyzer checks redirect rules.
Common mistake: Redirect chains (http to https to www) or mixed content warnings.
Old addresses keep their links and bookmarks only if they redirect.
Done when: Every old address with traffic or links redirects to its closest new page.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Use the Website migration checklist.
Common mistake: Sending everything to the homepage.
It helps Google find all your pages, especially on a new site with few links.
Done when: Sitemap submitted in Google Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools) and listed in robots.txt, with only live, canonical, 200 pages.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Search Console’s Sitemaps report shows “Success” and the number of pages found.
Common mistake: A sitemap full of redirects, noindex pages or test-site addresses.
A broken contact form costs leads from day one.
Done when: A test enquiry from a phone and a computer arrived; tap-to-call works; payments go through.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Send real test submissions and check they arrive.
Common mistake: Forms still sending to the developer’s test inbox.
Open Graph tags control the title and image when a page is shared.
Done when: Key pages show the right title, description and image when shared.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: The SEO Health Dashboard checks Open Graph tags.
Common mistake: Every share showing the test site’s placeholder image.
It can speed up the first crawl of key pages.
Done when: Homepage and main service pages requested with URL Inspection.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: URL Inspection shows the page as indexed after a few days.
Common mistake: Requesting hundreds of pages one by one instead of fixing the sitemap.
The first month
It shows which pages aren’t indexed and why.
Done when: Every “not indexed” reason reviewed weekly; real problems fixed.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Search Console, Indexing, Pages.
Common mistake: Panicking about pages that are meant to be excluded, like redirects.
Broken links waste visits and crawling.
Done when: No internal links to missing pages; old addresses with traffic redirected.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Search Console’s not found list and a crawl of the site.
Common mistake: Redirecting every 404 to the homepage.
A drop in clicks to specific pages shows what went wrong.
Done when: Clicks for the top 20 old pages compared before and after.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Upload a Search Console export to the GSC Data Interpreter.
Common mistake: Judging after only a few days. Allow a few weeks.
Core Web Vitals in Search Console come from real visits and take time to appear.
Done when: Core Web Vitals report reviewed; poor groups of pages fixed.
How to check it, and the usual mistake
How to check: Search Console, Experience, Core Web Vitals.
Common mistake: Optimizing the lab score only.
The free SEO Health Dashboard runs many of these checks on your page in under a minute and tells you what to fix first.
- SEO Starter Guide, Google Search Central
- Influencing your title links, Google Search Central
- Control your snippets in search results, Google Search Central
- Build and submit a sitemap, Google Search Central
- Introduction to robots.txt, Google Search Central
- Understand the JavaScript SEO basics, Google Search Central
- Web Vitals, web.dev
- How to specify a canonical URL, Google Search Central
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