The real risk is an unmade decision.
A checklist cannot decide whether a page should be merged, whether a navigation route should disappear, or who signs off the new CMS output. Those decisions belong in the project while there is still time to change the build.
Search planning starts with a baseline, but it should end with a clear record of requirements, owners, tests and what happened after launch. Use this collection as a brief for that conversation, not as a guarantee of rankings.
Choose the change you are making
A project may need more than one guide. The migration control plan is the starting point; the other guides focus on decisions specific to each type of change.
Start with the migration control plan
Any launch that changes URLs, templates or platform behaviour
A before, during and after checklist for baselines, mapping, staging, launch decisions and monitoring.
Replacing the CMS?
Platform selection, content modelling and engineering requirements
Specify the search-facing behaviour the new system must produce, then turn it into acceptance tests.
Rebuilding the experience?
Design, templates, content and technology changing together
Protect page purpose and search value while improving the experience rather than copying the old site blindly.
Changing navigation or architecture?
Menus, categories or internal routes being reorganised
Design clearer journeys without hiding the pages people and search engines still need to find.
Combining several sites?
Domain, brand or property consolidation
Resolve overlapping audiences and content before mapping each source URL to its next home.
One thread through the whole project
The exact checks vary by site. The sequence does not: decide what matters, design a destination, prove the output, control the release and compare what followed with the baseline.
- Define
What is changing, and which search and commercial journeys must survive?
Change inventory, page-group baseline, decision owners
- Design
Where will each important page, link and piece of information live?
Destination architecture, content decisions, URL map
- Prove
Does the real output meet requirements on normal and awkward pages?
Rendered-template tests, redirect samples, release blockers
- Launch
Who checks what, in what order, and who can stop the release?
Rehearsal, timed control plan, live issue log
- Learn
Which movement is expected, and which pattern needs investigation?
Segmented monitoring, corrective actions, handover
Need someone to own the search workstream?
I help teams define requirements, investigate the risks, challenge the plan and set up the evidence needed before and after a major change. The work is scoped around your project, not a generic monthly retainer.