# Ecommerce SEO migration: staging and launch checklist

Owner: __________________  Release: __________________  Reviewed: __________________

Record the exact environment, URL, timestamp, expected result, actual result and evidence location for each check. Mark untested checks as **not checked**, not passed.

## Scope and inventory

- [ ] Record hostname, platform, path, template, catalog and market changes.
- [ ] Name the release lead, SEO reviewer, engineer, commerce operator and recovery authority.
- [ ] Join catalog, crawl, sitemap, log and available usage exports; retain source dates and coverage limits.
- [ ] Include variants, documents, images and useful orphan URLs.
- [ ] Assign keep, move, merge or remove to each old URL; record relevance and owner.
- [ ] Confirm retained and consolidated content with its owner.

## Staging

- [ ] Protect staging with access control; robots.txt is not confidentiality protection.
- [ ] Check production controls separately from staging controls.
- [ ] Fetch every mapped redirect and verify its final destination, identity and response.
- [ ] Test loops, chains, hostname/slash/case and meaningful query-string exceptions.
- [ ] Compare title, heading, useful facts, specifications, images, support files and internal links.
- [ ] Check HTTP headers, robots access, rendered indexing directives and canonical.
- [ ] Check real pagination separately from duplicate ordering and invalid combinations.
- [ ] Verify product/variant, price, currency and stock through a safe purchase test.
- [ ] Compare page offers, structured data and feeds; do not invent identifiers or ratings.
- [ ] Verify sitemap and any real localized equivalents use final URLs.
- [ ] Record critical failures and accepted exceptions separately.

## Launch

| Checkpoint | Owner | Actual time | Evidence / result | Open action |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Confirm gates and current versions | | | | |
| Confirm live-order and inventory protection | | | | |
| Activate approved configuration | | | | |
| Verify anonymous public product and guide routes | | | | |
| Verify selected variants and safe purchase | | | | |
| Widen to templates, manual and complete map | | | | |
| Verify sitemap, offers and feed processing | | | | |

Stop condition: __________________

Recovery authority: __________________

Targeted repair / configuration rollback procedure: __________________

How new orders, payments, customers and inventory remain authoritative: __________________

## Follow-up

- [ ] Join old and new URLs by stable identity and compare aligned page groups and periods.
- [ ] Keep search clicks, sessions and order-system results distinct.
- [ ] Record promotions, stock and tracking changes before assigning causation.
- [ ] Repair current response/content defects; review later search-processing observations separately.
- [ ] Maintain permanent redirects for at least a year, and longer when useful; assign domain/TLS ownership.
- [ ] Hand over the actual deployed versions, evidence, open issues and review dates.

## Completed small example

Fictional Alder: same-domain WooCommerce to Shopify, UK only. Keep `/guides/tent-care` and `/manuals/cedar-2.pdf` as 200. Move `/product/cedar-2` directly to `/products/cedar-2` with a permanent redirect and verify product A-CD2. Merge `/guides/cleaning-tents` only after cleaning instructions survive in tent-care. Return 404 or 410 for `/product/obsolete-peg`, which has no successor or useful support purpose.

Hold the launch while a product-wide noindex remains. After repair, repeat anonymous header, canonical and rendering checks. If a guide wildcard fails after launch, repair the mapping and retest it while preserving current orders and inventory.

Guidance reviewed 2026-10-10. Sources: [Google site moves](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes), [Shopify redirects](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/menus-and-links/url-redirect), [WooCommerce products](https://woocommerce.com/document/managing-products/).