# Technical SEO for a new site (launch checklist) > Everything a search engine needs on day one — canonical URLs, sitemap, robots, structured data, speed, and the indexing request — done in the right order so the first crawl counts. - **Section:** Launch & marketing · **Region:** Global · **Difficulty:** medium - **Time:** 1–2 days for a small site - **Cost:** $0 - **You end up with:** A site that is crawlable, indexable, fast, and registered in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools - **Last reviewed:** 2026-09-05 · **Canonical:** https://for.do/p/technical-seo-launch-checklist/ ## Before you start - A live domain on HTTPS with a working site - Access to DNS (for verification records) and the site's head template Technical SEO at launch is a short list done in a specific order: make one canonical version of the site, make it crawlable, tell the engines it exists, and measure it. None of it ranks you by itself; all of it prevents the silent failures that keep new sites out of the index for weeks. ## 1. One canonical host, HTTPS only - [ ] Choose www or non-www and 301-redirect the other, and http to https, in one hop. - [ ] Add a canonical link tag on every page pointing to itself on the chosen host. - [ ] Check with curl that each of the four variants (http/https × www/non-www) lands on the same final URL with a 301. ## 2. Remove staging protections - [ ] Search the live HTML for `noindex` and the response headers for `X-Robots-Tag`. - [ ] Remove basic auth, IP allowlists and the "coming soon" page. - [ ] Make sure robots.txt allows crawling and does not block CSS, JS or images. ## 3. Head tags that matter - [ ] Unique title (under ~60 characters) and meta description (under ~160) on every page. - [ ] Open Graph and Twitter card tags with a real image (1200×630) so shared links render. - [ ] `lang` attribute on `html`, viewport meta, and a favicon. ## 4. Sitemap and robots - [ ] Generate sitemap.xml from the live URL set, with `lastmod` where you have it; keep it under 50,000 URLs per file. - [ ] Reference it in robots.txt with a `Sitemap:` line. - [ ] Return a real 404 status for missing pages (not a 200 "not found" page). ## 5. Structured data - [ ] Add JSON-LD for the page types you have: Organization and WebSite on the home page, Article or HowTo on content pages, BreadcrumbList on inner pages, FAQPage where there are questions. - [ ] Validate with the Rich Results Test and fix warnings that are actual errors. ## 6. Speed and Core Web Vitals - [ ] Run PageSpeed Insights on the home page and one inner page; fix the largest LCP element (usually an unsized hero image) and any layout shift. - [ ] Compress and size images (WebP/AVIF, explicit width/height), preload the main font, defer non-critical scripts. - [ ] Target LCP under 2.5 s, INP under 200 ms, CLS under 0.1 on mobile. ## 7. Register and request indexing - [ ] Verify the domain in Google Search Console (DNS TXT record) and Bing Webmaster Tools (import from GSC). - [ ] Submit the sitemap in both. - [ ] Use URL Inspection to request indexing for the home page and your five most important pages. - [ ] Add a short /llms.txt listing your key pages for AI crawlers. ## 8. Set the baseline - [ ] Note the indexed-page count, the Core Web Vitals report and the crawl stats after two weeks; that is the baseline every later change is measured against. ## Where people get this wrong - Launching with noindex left on from staging. It is the most common way a new site stays invisible for weeks; check the meta tag and the X-Robots-Tag header on the live site, not the staging one. - Two versions of every page. http/https and www/non-www must redirect to one canonical host with 301s; otherwise you split your own signals. - Submitting a sitemap with URLs that redirect or 404. Search Console reports it as errors and slows the crawl; generate the sitemap from the live URL set. - Blocking CSS or JS in robots.txt. Google renders pages; blocked assets make the rendered page look broken and can hurt rankings. ## Questions **How long until I appear in Google?** Days for the homepage if you request indexing in Search Console; weeks for the long tail. Ranking is a separate, slower question of content and links. **Do I need structured data?** Not to be indexed. It helps for rich results (articles, products, FAQs, breadcrumbs) and for machines that read your site; add the types that match your pages. **Should I add llms.txt?** It costs nothing and some AI crawlers read it. A short index of your key pages at /llms.txt is enough. ## Tools used - [Google Search Console](https://find.do/t/google-search-console/) (official) — Google's own report on how it crawls, indexes and ranks your site. - [Bing Webmaster Tools](https://find.do/t/bing-webmaster-tools/) (official) — Bing's equivalent of Search Console, with a one-click import from Google. - [PageSpeed Insights](https://find.do/t/pagespeed-insights/) (official) — Lab and field performance data for a URL, with Core Web Vitals. - [Rich Results Test](https://find.do/t/rich-results-test/) (official) — Validates the structured data on a page against Google's rich result types. - [Ahrefs Webmaster Tools](https://find.do/t/ahrefs-webmaster-tools/) — Free site audit and backlink data for sites you own. - [Screaming Frog SEO Spider](https://find.do/t/screaming-frog/) — A desktop crawler that finds broken links, missing tags and redirect chains. - [Cloudflare](https://find.do/t/cloudflare/) — DNS, CDN, TLS and a registrar at cost. - [Cloudflare Web Analytics](https://find.do/t/cloudflare-web-analytics/) — Free, privacy-first page analytics for any site, no cookies. ## Sources - [Google Search Central — SEO starter guide](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide) - [Google Search Central — Build and submit a sitemap](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/sitemaps/build-sitemap) - [web.dev — Core Web Vitals](https://web.dev/articles/vitals)