SEO Checklist for Website Migration
Pre, during, and post launch: indexation, redirects, sitemaps, hreflang, and validation your team can actually run.
Quick answer
Pre, during, and post launch: indexation, redirects, sitemaps, hreflang, and validation your team can actually run.
Common causes
What usually drives this situation
- -Ranking drops usually come from redirect and indexation mismatches.
- -Canonical and metadata parity should be verified after launch.
- -High-value URLs should be fixed before broad refinements.
- -Monitor daily in the early post-launch window.
Pre-migration: export current XML sitemaps, internal link samples, and top queries from Search Console. Baseline key rankings and landing URLs. Build a redirect map and test it in staging with representative URL sets, including edge cases and partner links.
During migration: block staging from indexation, then remove blocks at go-live. Ensure canonical tags and robots directives are correct in production, not copy-pasted from dev. Update sitemaps, submit in Search Console, and verify hreflang and domain property settings for international sites.
Content parity: check critical templates for title patterns, noindex where intended, and schema for products, articles, and organization. For large catalogs, sample deep pages, not only the home page.
If your situation looks similar, send your URL. I will review what is wrong and what matters first.
Start with a quick auditPost-migration: monitor index coverage, crawl stats, and soft 404s. Fix redirect chains, parameter issues, and unexpected noindex tags quickly. Log file analysis is valuable for large sites to see how Google actually crawls the new structure.
Document decisions: what changed, what was merged, and what was intentionally removed. Future teams (and future you) will need that context for the next redesign.
Steps to fix
A practical order of operations
- Lock URL inventory, redirects, and indexation before polishing copy.
- Parity-check metadata, canonicals, and sitemaps in the first 48 hours post-launch.
- Watch Search Console and server logs; fix redirect gaps before broad rewrites.
Summary
Document decisions: what changed, what was merged, and what was intentionally removed. Future teams (and future you) will need that context for the next redesign.
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