ConsoleBoard
Technical SEO

Technical SEO Pre-Launch Checklist

Crawlability, indexation, canonicals, schema, and speed checks before launch.

SRConsoleBoard SEO Research📅 Published October 1, 2026⏱ 7 min read

Run this checklist before a local site goes live. It covers the technical checks that prevent the most common launch failures — crawlability, indexation, canonicals, schema, and speed. Pair it with the Local SEO Launch Checklist for the full pre-launch process.

Crawlability

  • robots.txt does not block important paths (CSS, JS, images)
  • No noindex meta tags on pages you want indexed
  • Server returns HTTP 200 for canonical URLs
  • No redirect chains longer than one hop
  • XML sitemap is reachable and references only canonical URLs

Indexation and canonicals

  • Every page has a self-referencing canonical tag
  • Canonical URLs use the preferred protocol and host (https, www or non-www)
  • Pagination uses rel=prev/next or a self-referencing canonical strategy
  • Parameterized URLs are canonicalized or blocked intentionally

Structured data

  • LocalBusiness schema is present on the homepage or contact page
  • NAP in schema matches the Business Profile exactly
  • Schema validates in the Rich Results Test with no errors
  • Opening hours, geo, and URL fields are populated

Speed and Core Web Vitals

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is under 2.5 seconds
  • Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is under 200 milliseconds
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is under 0.1
  • Images are compressed and use width/height attributes
  • CSS and JS are minified and not render-blocking

Primary sources