Default TTL is often 3600-86400s. Drop to 300s two days before launch so cutover propagates quickly. Raise back to normal 48 hours after launch.
critical
Website Launch Checklist.
Thirty-five points across three phases: pre-launch (2–4 weeks out), launch day, and post-launch week one. Catches the 'robots.txt in production', 'schema not deployed', and 'canonical still pointing at staging' bugs before they kill your rankings.
◆ Your progress
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01 · Pre-launch (2-4 weeks before)
Every URL on the old site mapped to its equivalent on the new site. Required for 301 redirects. Missing mappings = dropped traffic.
critical
Generate the redirect rules. Deploy to staging. Use Screaming Frog to crawl the old URLs and verify every one redirects to its correct new URL with 301 status.
critical
Basic auth on staging subdomain + X-Robots-Tag: noindex header. Both. Otherwise your staging leaks into search results and confuses signals.
critical
Missing content is one of the top 3 reasons launches tank. If you're sunsetting pages, return 410 Gone (not 404) to signal intent to crawlers.
critical
Run Rich Results Test against staging URLs. Zero errors on LocalBusiness, BreadcrumbList, and any page-type-specific schema (FAQPage, BlogPosting).
high
Run PageSpeed Insights against staging. Aim for 'Good' on LCP, INP, CLS on every template. Fix before launch — CWV issues after launch compound with traffic loss.
high
Test via hreflang tag generator or Screaming Frog's hreflang report. Every pair must be bidirectional.
ongoing
At least 2 people have admin access to both properties. Avoids single-point-of-failure lockout post-launch.
critical
Pre-launch snapshot of: top 50 keyword rankings, monthly organic traffic, conversion rate, top pages by traffic. You'll need this to measure launch impact.
critical
Full dump. Stored offsite. Tested for restorability. If the launch goes sideways, you need to be able to roll back cleanly.
critical
Who monitors what (DNS, indexation, GSC errors, GA4 traffic). Who has authority to roll back. Who calls who at 2 AM if things go wrong.
high
SPF, DKIM, DMARC records set up. Test email flow to major providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo). Form submissions tested end-to-end.
high
Not expiring in 30 days. Matching domain + www variants. No mixed-content warnings. SSL Labs test graded A or better.
critical
Not a committee. One person verifies all 15 pre-launch items personally. Their signoff is required to proceed to launch-day cutover.
critical
02 · Launch day
Single most common launch-day failure. The staging Disallow: / somehow ships to production. Check your production robots.txt FIRST, before celebrating the launch.
critical
Second most common failure: canonicals still pointing at staging.example.com. Crawl the production site post-launch; every canonical must be production URL.
critical
Staging templates often have site-wide noindex. Verify it's removed in production. Scan all major templates (home, service, blog, FAQ) for meta robots.
critical
Load production in an incognito window. Accept cookies in ConsentBanner. Verify GA4 network request fires. Confirm real-time users in GA4 within 5 minutes.
critical
Use dnschecker.org. Should show new IP from at least 70% of global DNS servers within 2 hours of TTL expiry.
high
GSC → Sitemaps → Add. Submit the production sitemap URL. Confirm status 'Success' within an hour.
critical
GSC URL Inspection → Request Indexing on your top 10 pages (homepage, top services, top blog posts). Speeds up re-discovery.
high
Run curl -I or Chrome DevTools Network tab on 20 old URLs. Every one must return 301 with correct Location header pointing to new URL.
critical
If you changed domains, use GSC → Settings → Change of Address. Helps Google transfer authority from old to new domain over weeks.
high
Check-in at T+30min, T+1hr, T+2hrs. Forms working. Checkout working. Analytics firing. No 500 errors in logs. Launch is only 'done' when the first 2 hours are clean.
critical
03 · Post-launch ( first week )
Watch for unexpected spikes in Excluded, Error, or 'Crawled — currently not indexed'. Launches always cause temporary dips; sustained issues need investigation.
criticalongoing
Expect 5-15% dip in first 72 hours as Google re-indexes. Sustained 30%+ dip after 7 days = problem. Check referrer sources; organic traffic should recover within 2-4 weeks.
critical
Daily tracking (Ahrefs, Semrush, Local Falcon). Map pack and organic both. Plot against baseline to see recovery trajectory.
critical
Full crawl, looking for 404s, redirect chains >2 hops, broken internal links, missing canonicals. Fix immediately. Re-crawl weekly for first month.
critical
If 20%+ of URLs changed, resubmit sitemap. Speeds up Google's re-discovery of the changes.
high
Submit a test form, make a test purchase, complete a test booking. Verify events fire in GA4 / GTM / CRM. Catch any tracking breakage while traffic is still low.
critical
Hreflang pairs sometimes break during launch. Re-run validation. GSC → International Targeting reports any errors.
ongoing
High-value backlinks hitting 301s still pass equity but less than direct links. Reach out to top 20 linking sites to update URLs to new canonical.
highongoing
Once the launch is stable, raise TTL back to reduce DNS query overhead. Set a calendar reminder for day 8.
ongoing
Document what went wrong, what took longer than expected, what the next launch should do differently. Feeds your next launch playbook.
high
Start here
Launches are easy to mess up. Recovery is expensive .
If you're launching a new site, the $197 audit is cheap insurance against the handful of mistakes that cost 6 months of rankings. A pre-launch audit beats a post-launch 'uh oh' every time.