/This is a specialist SEO checklist
The Digital Hive already publishes a general website launch checklist that covers the full pre-launch process, from browser QA to legal pages. This article deliberately focuses on the SEO-specific work that protects rankings, indexation and authority when a new site replaces an existing one. If you have not yet worked through the general list, start there and treat this as the SEO layer on top.
/Why SEO migrations go wrong
Most NZ SEO horror stories start with a website launch that skipped the migration work. URLs change, redirects are missed, metadata is dropped, canonicals are wrong, schema disappears, and rankings that took years to earn evaporate inside a week. Almost none of this is caused by the design or development itself. All of it is caused by launching without an SEO plan.
/1. Crawl the current site
Before you touch anything, run a full crawl of the current live site using Screaming Frog, Sitebulb or your tool of choice. Capture every indexed URL, its current status code, its metadata, its canonicals, its schema, and its internal linking. Combine that with a Search Console export of pages receiving impressions and clicks over the last twelve months. This is your baseline. Everything else is measured against it.
/2. Map old URLs to new
Every existing URL needs a decision. Keep the URL as is. Change the URL and set a 301 redirect. Merge into another page with a 301. Retire the page with a 410 if it truly has no value. Do not leave any URL undecided. A single unmapped high-value URL becomes a single missing top ten ranking on launch day.
/3. 301 redirects
Every changed or retired URL that had value gets a permanent 301 redirect to the closest equivalent page. Not a homepage redirect. Not a soft 404. A specific 301 to a page that actually satisfies the same intent. Chained redirects and redirect loops both cost equity. Keep chains flat and test them all after launch.
/4. Metadata
Every page needs a purposeful title tag and meta description. Titles reflect the primary keyword and brand. Meta descriptions read like something a human would click. Do not autogenerate from the H1 and hope. Do not truncate mid-word. Do not duplicate across pages. Missing or duplicate metadata is one of the most common launch regressions.
/5. H1s
One H1 per page, containing the primary topic. H1s should not be reused as decorative headers. If your new template uses a large hero heading, confirm it is actually rendered as an H1 in the HTML, and that no other element on the page is also an H1. Multiple H1s on a page is a common launch bug.
/6. Canonicals
Every page should self-canonical to its final production URL, without query strings, tracking parameters or trailing slash inconsistencies. Verify canonicals point to https, the correct domain and the correct path. Do not canonical every page to the homepage. That is the single fastest way to deindex your entire site.
/7. Robots directives
Confirm robots.txt allows the pages you want crawled and blocks the ones you do not, such as admin, staging previews and login. Confirm no important pages carry an accidental noindex meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header inherited from staging. The classic launch disaster is discovering a week later that the entire production site is noindex because it inherited from the staging environment.
/8. Sitemap
Generate a fresh XML sitemap containing every indexable URL on the new site, and only indexable URLs. Reference the sitemap in robots.txt. Submit it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools on launch day, not weeks later.
/9. Indexability
Spot check every critical URL with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. Confirm each page is discoverable, indexable, canonical to itself and rendering the content you expect Google to see. Do not assume, verify.
/10. Schema
Rebuild every schema block that existed on the old site: Organization, LocalBusiness, WebSite, BreadcrumbList, Article, Product, FAQPage, Service, Person and anything else you had. Validate every template with Google's Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator. Broken schema is worse than no schema, and 2026 AEO relies on it.
/11. Analytics
Confirm GA4 is present on every page, fires the events you rely on, and matches the property you actually monitor. Configure conversion events for the enquiries, bookings, downloads and clicks that matter. If you use Google Tag Manager, verify every tag fires in the correct environment, including on redirects.
/12. Search Console
Verify Search Console for the new site before launch. Compare the domain and URL prefix properties. Set up email alerts for coverage issues. Submit the sitemap on launch day. Monitor the coverage, page indexing and enhancements reports daily for the first two weeks.
/13. Image alt text
Every content image needs descriptive alt text. Decorative images get empty alt. Do not stuff keywords, and do not leave alt attributes missing. Alt text feeds accessibility, image search and, increasingly, AI extraction of what your pages actually contain.
/14. Internal links
Rebuild the internal linking structure on the new site to at least match the old one. Every commercial page should be reachable from the homepage in as few clicks as possible. Deep, orphaned pages lose authority fast. Anchor text should be descriptive, not click here.
/15. Broken links
Run a full crawl of the new site the moment it is live. Fix every internal 404, redirect loop and broken outbound link. External links to authoritative sources still support SEO and AEO, and broken outbound links are a quality signal in the wrong direction.
/16. Page speed
Test Core Web Vitals on the new site with PageSpeed Insights and real user monitoring. Compare against the old site. If launch regressed performance, fix it before your rankings absorb the hit. Lazy load below-the-fold images, defer non-critical JavaScript, and keep hero images optimised.
/17. Mobile experience
Google indexes mobile-first. If your mobile experience is a compromised version of desktop, so is your ranking potential. Check that the mobile version of every critical page renders the same primary content, structured data and internal links as the desktop version.
/18. Remove staging noindex
The single most common launch failure. Staging environments carry noindex directives that were never intended to migrate to production. Manually confirm the production site is fully indexable across a sample of critical URLs before you consider launch complete.
/19. Preserve valuable existing URLs
If a URL currently earns organic clicks or backlinks, resist the temptation to change it just because a new taxonomy looks cleaner. If you must change it, redirect it and expect a short-term dip. Never delete a URL with backlinks without a redirect in place.
/20. Post-launch monitoring
The first two weeks are decisive. Watch Search Console coverage, impressions, clicks and average position daily. Watch analytics for traffic drops on specific templates or pages. Watch server logs for 404 spikes. Watch Core Web Vitals. Every issue caught inside two weeks costs a fraction of the rankings that would have been lost silently.
/Where to start
If you are planning a NZ website launch or replatform, treat this checklist as a mandatory pre-launch gate, not a nice-to-have. Book a strategy call with The Digital Hive if you would like us to run the migration SEO alongside your design and development team, or to audit a migration plan before you go live.
