SEO launch checklist: what to check before and after go-live

What is inside

• How to use: the working order, what each status means and which rows to treat as launch blockers.
• Before launch: 34 checks in eight areas (indexing, structure, pages, content, speed, mobile, analytics, legal basics).
• For every check: the action to take, the report or tool to open, and one line on why it matters.
• First month: 15 follow-up checks by week, from sitemap status to the first queries and real-user speed data.
• A status dropdown in each row and progress counters at the bottom of both check sheets.
• Rows marked “Relaunch only” for redirects, the old-site baseline and a change of domain.

The order to work through it

The sheet runs from what blocks search engines outright to what only polishes the result. A site with a leftover crawl block or a broken redirect cannot be read at all, so those rows come first and should be closed before the public launch. Titles, alt text and speed matter too, but a gap there can be fixed in the first week without hiding the whole site.

Work with whoever has access to the server and the CMS. Many rows are quick if you can open the page source and the browser's developer tools. Several need Google Search Console, so set it up before launch day, not after.

What the checklist does not replace

This is a readiness check, not an audit. It samples one page of each type and the main reports. A full technical audit crawls every URL, reads the server logs, tests how scripts render and looks for problems that only show up at scale.

It also says nothing about whether the content deserves to be found. Google's own starter guide puts useful, original content ahead of every technical suggestion, and no row here can judge that for you. A file with every row marked Done means search engines can find, read and show the site. Where it appears in results is a separate question.

• A full technical audit of every URL, the server logs and script rendering.
• A review of content quality, search demand and the offer on each page.
• Legal advice on privacy, cookies and consumer rules in your country.
• Ongoing monitoring: Google suggests looking at Search Console about once a month and after changes to the site.

New site or relaunch

For a brand-new domain, set the rows marked “Relaunch only” to Not applicable. Expect a quiet start: Google's help says it can take a week or so before a new site begins to be crawled and indexed, and a new site has no real-user speed data until enough people have visited it.

For a relaunch, the redirect rows carry most of the risk. Google recommends permanent server-side redirects from each old URL to its matching new page, advises against sending everything to the home page and suggests keeping redirects for at least a year. It also notes that visibility can fluctuate while the new addresses are processed, so compare with the saved baseline after a few weeks, not after a few days.