Run a technical SEO audit before you redesign or migrate so you protect crawlability, indexation, redirects, and the URLs that already bring traffic.
I wrote the long version because teams keep treating this as a slogan instead of a sequence. The short version is still useful: decide what the page or site is actually for, then protect the URLs, the offer, and the HTML Google can fetch.
What this actually means
A practical technical SEO audit checklist for teams about to redesign or migrate. Capture the baseline, fix crawl and index issues, and protect the URLs that already rank.
Most of the damage I see is not a missing plugin. It is a missing owner. Someone redesigned the template, dropped a title, hid the copy behind a click, or launched without a redirect map. Then they asked why traffic moved.
The parts I would not skip
- Audit before the redesign so you know which URLs, schema, and templates to protect.
- Search Console is the indexation source of truth; the crawler is the inventory.
- Redirects, canonicals, robots, and sitemap contents are non-negotiable launch artifacts.
- Re-run the same checklist after launch as a regression test.
If you only do one thing, do the inventory first. Crawl the current site. Export Search Console. Write down the URLs that already earn clicks or conversations. Those pages are the contract. Everything else is decoration until that list is safe.
How I would use this
I treat this as a working note, not a manifesto. Use it before you hire, before you migrate, or before you open a new design file. If the current site already works, do not blow it up for a moodboard.
This is an adapted version of a longer guide. The full walkthrough, examples, and implementation notes live on my site.
Read the full article: Technical SEO Audit Checklist Before You Redesign or Migrate
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