Technical SEO
The Launch Checklist You Actually Run
A checklist is only useful if you execute it and record the result. Work through these groups before submitting a new site for indexing, and write down what you fixed.
Educational guide · Reviewed September 2026
How to use it
Go group by group on a single page type, then repeat for each type. Verify by observation — fetch the URL, read the HTML, check the status code — rather than assuming a platform handled it. Record a short note for each failure and what you changed.
Rendering and delivery
- Each page returns meaningful HTML in the initial server response.
- The site is served over HTTPS with no mixed-content warnings.
- One hostname is canonical; the other redirects with a 301.
- One trailing-slash convention is used in URLs, links and canonicals.
Status codes
- Live pages return 200.
- Missing URLs return a real 404 with a useful page — never a 200 homepage.
- Moved URLs return 301 to the closest relevant page, not the homepage by default.
- No redirect chains longer than one hop.
Indexing control
- Every indexable page has exactly one self-referencing canonical.
- No canonical is set in a shared layout pointing all pages at one URL.
- Draft, thin and internal pages are unreachable or explicitly noindex.
- No accidental site-wide noindex left from development.
Crawl instructions
- robots.txt allows the pages you want indexed.
- The sitemap lists only canonical, live, indexable pages.
- The sitemap contains no redirects, 404s or noindexed URLs.
- The sitemap is referenced once a public domain is live.
On-page basics
- Unique title and meta description per page.
- Exactly one H1 per page, matching the page's purpose.
- Logical heading order with no levels skipped for styling.
- Descriptive alt text on informative images; decorative images marked as such.
- Images compressed and correctly sized for mobile.
Internal linking
- No orphan pages — everything is reachable from navigation or in-content links.
- Hub pages link to children and children link back.
- Informational pages link to the commercial page they support.
- Anchor text describes the destination rather than saying 'click here'.
Mobile and accessibility
- Layout works from 360 pixels wide with no horizontal scrolling.
- Tap targets are large enough and not overlapping.
- Forms have real labels, visible focus states and clear error messages.
- Navigation and menus are fully keyboard-operable.
Structured data
- Schema is used only where it describes something factually true on the page.
- Breadcrumb markup matches the visible breadcrumb trail.
- No review, rating, student-count or course-availability markup that cannot be substantiated.
Analytics and verification
- Search Console property verified and the sitemap submitted.
- Analytics installed with real identifiers, not placeholders.
- No personal data sent into analytics events.
After launch
Re-run the indexing control and crawl instruction groups whenever you add a page type, change URLs or publish a batch of content. Most technical regressions arrive with a template change, not with the original build.