What to check after a website redesign
LightSEO · Technical SEO
What to check after a website redesign
A redesign is the most common reason for a sudden loss of traffic. The design itself is rarely to blame – the damage comes from the things that get changed along with it and should have been left alone.
Checks
What to look at right after launch
The site is open to indexing. The first and most common issue: the indexing block from the staging environment was left in place.
URLs have stayed the same. If they have changed, page-to-page redirects must be in place.
Meta tags are in place. A new template often wipes out the Title and Description or fills in identical ones.
Category texts have been kept. A frequent loss during a front-end rebuild: the text block simply does not get carried over to the new template.
Structured data works. Check it in a validator: it breaks regularly after the markup changes.
Analytics is tracking. The tracking code and goals must be on the new template, including the thank-you page.
Speed has held up. A new design is often heavier than the old one.
Next
What to monitor for two weeks
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Impression trends
Search Console will show a drop before you notice it in your orders.
🕳
404 errors
A spike means some URLs have changed without redirects.
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Indexing
The number of indexed pages should stay level.
Planning a redesign or just finished one?
We will check the technical side before and after launch so the update does not cost you traffic.
