Remove staging noindex tags and password protection on the live domain
Confirm robots.txt allows key sections and does not block CSS or JS
Submit the XML sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Check every old URL in the redirect map returns a single 301 to the right page
Confirm canonical tags point to the live HTTPS URL of each page
Pick one HTTPS host (www or non-www) and redirect the others to it
Spot check rendered HTML of key templates with URL Inspection
Confirm titles and meta descriptions are unique on top templates
Verify structured data with the Rich Results Test
Confirm analytics and tag manager fire on the live domain
Record a baseline of indexed pages, clicks and rankings before launch
- [ ] Remove staging noindex tags and password protection on the live domain
- [ ] Confirm robots.txt allows key sections and does not block CSS or JS
- [ ] Submit the XML sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
- [ ] Check every old URL in the redirect map returns a single 301 to the right page
- [ ] Confirm canonical tags point to the live HTTPS URL of each page
- [ ] Pick one HTTPS host (www or non-www) and redirect the others to it
- [ ] Spot check rendered HTML of key templates with URL Inspection
- [ ] Confirm titles and meta descriptions are unique on top templates
- [ ] Verify structured data with the Rich Results Test
- [ ] Confirm analytics and tag manager fire on the live domain
- [ ] Record a baseline of indexed pages, clicks and rankings before launch