Before design: capture the baseline
Record what exists before changing it. This gives the project a reference for content, URLs, forms, analytics, redirects, integrations, and known issues.
- Crawl or inventory important URLs
- Record current titles and canonical URLs
- List forms and conversion paths
- Check analytics and Search Console access
- Capture redirects and important external integrations
- Back up the existing website
During design and development
Review the redesign as a working system, not only as screenshots. Check real content lengths, responsive behavior, keyboard access, forms, error states, performance, and editing workflows.
- Use representative content
- Test mobile and tablet layouts
- Keep heading structure clear
- Verify navigation and internal links
- Test forms with success and failure cases
- Review image sizes and loading behavior
Before launch
A launch checklist should compare the new site against the baseline and confirm that search engines and users can still reach the pages that matter.
- Map changed URLs to redirects
- Verify canonical and robots directives
- Check sitemap output
- Test analytics and consent behavior
- Run broken-link and response-code checks
- Confirm backups and rollback path
After launch
Recheck important pages in production, submit the sitemap when appropriate, monitor Search Console and analytics, and keep a record of fixes made after release. A redesign is complete only when the live behavior is verified.
Keep the old URL list and record which pages stayed at the same address, which moved, and where each moved page redirects. Compare important page titles, canonical URLs, forms, and internal links against the baseline. A successful deployment alone does not confirm that Google has indexed every page.