Redesigns are high-leverage—and high-risk. This website redesign SEO checklist gives marketing leads a pragmatic 4-phase migration plan to keep rankings and improve them. Use it as your guardrail from the first URL inventory to the 30-day stabilisation review.

Phase 1: Discovery—Pre-Work Inventory & Strategy#

Start with a complete inventory. The goal is to understand what must be preserved, what can be consolidated, and where strategic gains are possible. Document everything now to prevent avoidable traffic loss later.

URL Inventory and Content Mapping#

• Export all live URLs (site crawl + CMS + XML sitemaps + analytics landing pages).
• Classify each page: keep/as-is, improve, merge, retire.
• Capture on-page essentials: H1, meta title/description, canonical, headings, word count, primary keyword.
• Record internal links and top inbound links to avoid breaking authority paths.
• Draft a redirects map (old → new) with status (200 target), reason, and owner.

Technical Baseline & Risk Register#

• Core Web Vitals baselines (LCP/CLS/INP) by template and device class.
• Indexation state: canonicals, meta robots, robots.txt, parameter rules.
• Structured data in use (e.g., Organization, WebSite, Product, Article, LocalBusiness).
• Media & CDN: current formats, compression, caching, and image breakpoints.
• Analytics & tags: GA4 events, conversions, consent, and any server-side tagging.

Phase 2: Staging—SEO Parity Before the Switch#

Your staging environment must reach SEO parity before launch. Validate that every critical signal is present and correct. Don’t rely on memory—use this checklist.

Redirects Map: Build and Validate#

• Map every retiring URL to a single best-fit destination (no redirect chains).
• Prefer 301 for permanent moves; avoid 302 unless temporarily testing.
• Keep query-string and trailing-slash behaviour consistent.
• Test at scale on staging with automated checks; export 404s and fix before launch.

# Example .htaccess rules (Apache)
RewriteEngine On
# Force HTTPS and canonical host
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

# Redirects map
Redirect 301 /old-services/web-design /services/web-design
Redirect 301 /blog/2021/migration-tips /insights/seo-website-migration-guide

Meta, Canonicals, and Structured Data Carry-Over#

• Replicate titles, meta descriptions, and H1s where intent is unchanged.
• Set correct rel=canonical on each template; avoid self-referencing mistakes on faceted pages.
• Reimplement structured data with current schema types; validate in a Rich Results test.
• Ensure pagination tags or canonicalisation rules persist for listings and archives.

Core Web Vitals, Media, and CDN Ops#

• Use responsive images (srcset/sizes) with modern formats (e.g., AVIF/WebP) and width-aware breakpoints.
• Preload highest-priority resources: brand font subset, hero image, and critical CSS.
• Defer non-critical scripts; audit third-party tags and load after user interaction when possible.
• Adopt a CDN with caching headers, image resizing, and brotli compression.
• Verify CLS stabilisers (dimensioned media, reserved space, cautious dynamic content).

Analytics Parity and Consent#

• Mirror GA4 events and conversions on staging with test data streams.
• Preserve campaign UTM handling and cross-domain settings if applicable.
• Check server-side tagging or consent mode parity; no duplicate events.
• Create an annotations plan covering launch day and follow-up changes.

Phase 3: Launch—Your SEO QA Runbook#

Launch is execution, not exploration. Freeze scope, follow a minute-by-minute checklist, and verify live-environment signals fast.

Launch Day Tasks (Chronological)#

1. Lift robots.txt blocks on production; keep staging blocked via auth or IP allowlists.
2. Deploy redirects map; test top 200 legacy URLs plus high-value long-tail.
3. Push XML sitemaps; update Search Console property and resubmit sitemaps.
4. Spot-check templates: home, category, product/service, blog, contact, 404.
5. Validate canonicals, hreflang (if used), and pagination on live URLs.
6. Confirm GA4 real-time events and ecommerce/lead events firing once.
7. Crawl the site at low concurrency; export unexpected 4xx/5xx; fix or redirect.
8. Open log monitoring for spikes in 404/500; triage within the hour.
9. Run synthetic CWV checks; verify LCP placeholders and blocking scripts.

Emergency Backout and Comms#

• Define a backout plan (DNS/app rollback) with owners and time limits.
• Communicate status in a shared channel; keep a single source of truth for issues.
• Log all hotfixes with timestamps for later analysis.

Phase 4: Stabilise—30-Day Monitoring & Iteration#

Expect some volatility. Your job is to shorten the wobble and capture quick wins. Monitor crawl health, ranking trends, and conversion signals daily in week 1, then weekly.

Post-Launch Monitoring Loop#

• Search Console: coverage changes, page experience issues, manual actions (rare, but check), and sitemap statuses.
• Server logs: 404/500 trends, unexpected bot blocks, excessive 301 chains.
• GA4: landing pages, bounce/engagement, conversions by page template.
• CWV field data: watch LCP/CLS/INP percentiles for regressions by template.
• Backlink health: verify that top-linked pages resolve to 200 (not 404/redirect chains).

Fast Follow Improvements (Weeks 2–4)#

• Fill content gaps identified during mapping; merge thin pages with canonical clean-up.
• Improve internal links to new priority pages; update navigation/footers if needed.
• Tighten image/CDN rules (cache-control, client hints, background image lazy-loading).
• Prune redundant third-party scripts or defer with user-initiated triggers.

Template and Downloadable Checklist Items#

• URL inventory spreadsheet with columns for status, owner, redirect target, and notes.
• Redirects CSV (old_path,new_url,type,owner) with automated validation.
• SEO parity checklist per template (meta, canonical, schema, headings, links).
• Launch runbook (roles, timings, verification steps, backout plan).
• 30-day monitoring tracker (issues, impact, fix, date, owner).

{
  "redirects": [
    { "from": "/about-us", "to": "/about", "type": 301 },
    { "from": "/services/web-design", "to": "/services/website-design", "type": 301 }
  ]
}

Structured Data: Carry-Over Examples#

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Your Brand",
  "url": "https://www.example.com",
  "logo": "https://www.example.com/logo.png",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/yourbrand"
  ]
}

QA Launch Plan: Don’t Ship Blind#

1. Block staging from indexing (robots + auth); unblock production at go-live.
2. Validate XML sitemaps (size, lastmod, canonical paths).
3. Automated checks for 200/3xx/4xx across top pages and templates.
4. Manual UX spot checks on mobile/desktop for key journeys and forms.
5. Privacy & consent: banners, preferences, and tag firing logic.
6. 404 design: helpful message, search box, popular links; log referrers.

Measurement: Analytics Parity and Reporting Cadence#

Reporting must be comparable across old and new sites. Create continuity so stakeholders can see cause and effect, not just numbers.

• Map old goals to GA4 conversions and verify event parameters.
• Retain campaign tagging standards; document UTMs for all launch activities.
• Dashboards: traffic by landing page template, conversions, and site speed.
• Add annotations for launch, hotfixes, and major redirect updates.
• Share a weekly stabilisation summary (wins, issues, next actions).

Risks and How to Avoid Them#

• Launching without a complete redirects map (results in 404s and lost link equity).
• Changing URL structures and titles simultaneously without clear intent mapping.
• Letting JavaScript block LCP or introduce CLS regressions from new components.
• Losing schema types that previously earned Rich Result features.
• Duplicating analytics tags and inflating conversion counts.

How CodeKodex Protects Rankings and Speeds Up Your Redesign#

We slot into your project as the SEO safety net—preserving visibility while your new site gets faster and cleaner. You get a lean redirects plan, staging SEO parity, Core Web Vitals guardrails, and analytics continuity so launch day is calm and conversions don’t dip.

• Redirects done right: one-to-one mapping with automated checks—no chains, no surprises.
• SEO parity on staging: titles/meta, canonicals, schema, and internal links mirrored and verified.
• Performance guardrails: image/CDN rules and template budgets to keep LCP/CLS/INP in the green.
• Analytics continuity: GA4 events aligned so pre- and post-launch reporting remains comparable.

Conclusion: Ship With Confidence, Not Hope#

A successful migration is disciplined, not dramatic. Your website redesign SEO checklist should live beside your project plan from day one. Inventory first, achieve staging parity, launch with a clear runbook, and stabilise with data. Do this and you won’t just keep rankings—you’ll create a faster, clearer site that converts better.

Frequently Asked Questions#

Next Steps#

Ready to de-risk your migration? Here’s a simple way to get momentum without adding noise to your roadmap.

1. Send your latest crawl (or sitemap) and top landing pages for the last 6–12 months.
2. We’ll return a concise migration readiness note and a draft redirects outline.
3. Book a 30-minute staging review to confirm SEO parity and Core Web Vitals guardrails.
4. Agree the launch runbook (owners, checks, roll-back) and add dates to your plan.
5. Go live with confidence—then review week-one data together for fast follow-ups.

If you’d like, we can also tailor the checklist to your stack and slot into your CI/CD for automated checks from day one.