Website redesign
SEO checklist.

Before anyone touches the design

• Full crawl of the existing siteEvery URL that currently resolves, exported. This document is what the whole migration is built from — skipping it is the single most common cause of post-launch traffic loss.
• Export Search Console performance by page16 months if you have it. You need to know which URLs earn impressions and clicks before you decide what survives.
• Record current rankings for your top 20 queriesYou cannot prove a redesign did or didn't hurt you without a before.
• Export your analytics baselineSessions, conversions, and top landing pages for the last 12 months.
• Save a Core Web Vitals snapshotIf the new site ships slower than the old one, you want to find out by comparison rather than by guessing.
• Note every indexed URL that has backlinksThese are the ones where a missed redirect costs you the most.

Before the build starts

• Decide keep / consolidate / rewrite / retire for every pageBased on what it ranks for and earns — not on whether it looks dated. Consolidating several thin pages into one strong page usually gains rankings.
• Build the redirect map from the inventoryEvery retired or moved URL gets a deliberate 301 to its closest equivalent. Decided now, in a spreadsheet — not improvised during launch week.
• Point redirects at real equivalents, not the homepageBulk-redirecting everything to / is treated as a soft 404 and throws away the equity you were trying to keep.
• Check for redirect chainsA to B to C loses value and wastes crawl budget. Collapse every chain to a single hop.
• Preserve titles, H1s and meta descriptions on pages that rankIf a page is performing, the redesign is not the moment to rewrite what it says.
• Keep the URL structure where you canThe safest migration changes the fewest URLs. Change them only when there is a reason beyond tidiness.

During development

• Block the staging site from indexingBasic auth or noindex. Then confirm it isn't already in the index.
• Carry over structured dataOrganization, LocalBusiness, FAQ, breadcrumbs, article markup. Easy to lose in a replatform and invisible when it goes.
• Rebuild XML sitemaps to list only live, canonical URLsA sitemap that lists redirecting or retired URLs wastes crawl budget.
• Set canonical tags explicitlyEspecially if the new platform generates parameter or pagination variants.
• Recreate internal links, not just navigationIn-content links carry weight. They're the easiest thing to drop when pages get rebuilt.
• Keep image filenames and alt text where images rankImage search traffic is real for portfolio, product and recipe sites.
• Verify analytics and conversion tracking on stagingLaunching blind means you can't tell a tracking break from a traffic drop.

Launch day

• Confirm robots.txt isn't blocking the siteA staging robots.txt shipping to production is a classic, and it can cost you the entire index.
• Spot-check redirects against the mapTest the highest-traffic URLs by hand. Automated checks miss the ones that matter.
• Submit the new sitemap in Search ConsoleAnd remove any old sitemap that no longer reflects the site.
• Request indexing for your most important pagesSpeeds up recrawl on the pages you care most about.
• Verify no noindex tags shipped to productionCheck the rendered HTML, not the CMS setting.
• Confirm HTTPS and the www / non-www choice still redirect correctlyFour variants of your homepage should collapse to one.

The 30-90 days that decide it

• Watch Search Console coverage daily for two weeksCrawl errors and 404 spikes surface after go-live, not during QA. A missed redirect caught in week one is a non-event; caught in month four it's a recovery project.
• Track impressions and average position weekly against your baselineA short dip while Google recrawls is normal. A sustained decline past four weeks is not.
• Fix every 404 that has inbound trafficThese are the redirects the map missed. Check server logs, not just Search Console.
• Re-run Core Web Vitals on real trafficLab scores and field data diverge. Field data is what counts.
• Compare conversion rate, not just trafficA redesign that holds traffic and converts worse has still failed.
• Keep the old site's analytics accessible for a yearYou will want the comparison longer than you expect.