The mistakes that cost sites their rankings at launch
The single most common launch disaster is going live with the whole site blocked from indexing, a leftover from the staging environment. Close behind it are broken redirects from old URLs, lost metadata, and a structure search engines can't crawl.
A pre-launch audit checks the site while it's still on staging, so these issues get fixed before Google ever sees them, not after your traffic drops.
- The noindex tag and robots.txt disallow that must be removed before going live
- A complete 301 redirect map from every old URL to its new destination
- Preservation of title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and canonical tags
- XML sitemap generation and readiness to submit in Search Console
- Crawlability of the new template, navigation, and internal linking
- Analytics and Search Console setup so you can measure from day one
Migrations need extra care
Redesigns and platform migrations carry the highest risk because URLs, structure, and content all change at once. Without a mapped path from old to new, you lose the accumulated authority of every page whose URL changed.
We treat a migration as its own workstream: preserve what ranks, redirect what moves, and verify everything before and immediately after the switch.
- URL-by-URL mapping so no ranking page 404s or chains through multiple redirects
- A pre-launch benchmark of current rankings, traffic, and top pages to protect
- Verification that high-value content survived the move intact
- A go-live checklist run at cutover, then a re-crawl to confirm the site is indexable
- A post-launch monitoring window to catch anything that slips through
More on seo audits
Frequently asked questions
When should we run the pre-launch audit?
While the site is still on staging, with enough time before launch to fix what we find, ideally a couple of weeks out for a redesign. Running it the night before launch leaves no room to correct serious problems, and running it after go-live means you're already losing traffic.
We're building a brand-new site with no old URLs. Do we still need this?
Yes, though the focus shifts. There's no redirect map to build, but the biggest launch risks, an accidental site-wide noindex, an uncrawlable structure, or a missing sitemap, all still apply to a fresh site. This is exactly what catches them before they cost you your first months of visibility.
Can you do the audit and also help at go-live?
Yes. Many clients want us both to audit staging and to run the go-live checklist and post-launch re-crawl. We'll scope what you need in a free consultation based on how your team is handling the launch.