Pre-launch SEO audit for your SGEN site

How to run a pre-launch SEO audit on a SGEN site

Acme Coffee Roasters has finished building their SGEN site — pages are structured, content is written, and the team is two days away from switching the domain to the live URL. Before the domain switches, there is one pass the site needs to pass: the pre-launch SEO audit. Done at this stage, it catches problems while they are still on staging, where fixes cost minutes. Done after launch, the same fixes cost rankings, crawl budget, and weeks of recovery time.

This guide covers every SEO item worth checking before a SGEN site goes public. It is structured as an ordered checklist with explanations so you understand what each item affects and why it matters — not just a list of boxes to tick.

What is this for?

This guide is for SGEN admins who are preparing a site for public launch — whether it is a new build, a migration from another CMS, or a major redesign going live on a new domain. It covers the SEO configuration items that should be confirmed and correct before the domain is switched and before search engine crawlers index the site.

The audit is structured in order of impact: items that affect all pages come first, followed by items that are per-page, then structural items (sitemap and robots), then advanced items (structured data and redirects). Work through the list in order rather than skipping to the sections that seem most relevant — foundational issues in the early items compound the impact of problems found later.

Good use cases

Example 1: Pre-launch audit for a coffee brand site. Acme Coffee Roasters completed a full pre-launch SEO audit before switching their domain. The audit caught three pages with identical SEO titles (the default placeholder had not been updated), a missing meta description on the homepage, and a sitemap that was still set to exclude the production domain because it had been configured on staging. All three were fixed before the domain switched. At the first Google Search Console report two weeks after launch, no crawl errors or missing-metadata issues appeared.

Example 2: Migrated blog with missing canonical tags. Acme Coffee Roasters migrated 40 blog posts from a previous CMS. During the audit, they found that none of the migrated posts had canonical URL tags set — the field had not been populated during import. Without canonicals, search engines could index the staging domain URL instead of the production URL. Bulk-updating the canonical field on all posts before launch prevented the staging URL from being indexed.

Example 3: Robots.txt blocking indexing on staging. The Acme Coffee Roasters staging site had a robots.txt that blocked all crawlers — a standard staging configuration to prevent the under-construction site from being indexed prematurely. During the pre-launch audit, the team confirmed the robots configuration in SGEN's settings would update to allow indexing on the production domain. Forgetting this step on a previous site had resulted in Google deindexing the whole site post-launch.

Example 4: Redirect map incomplete for a redesign. When Acme Coffee Roasters relaunched with a restructured URL scheme, the pre-launch audit caught 14 old URLs that had no redirect configured. Visitors arriving from bookmarks or older links would have landed on 404 pages. The redirect audit step identified every missing entry and the team created the redirects before the domain switched.

Example 5: Open Graph tags missing site-wide. A site wide check during the Acme Coffee Roasters pre-launch audit found that no pages had Open Graph images configured. Links shared on social media would generate generic previews rather than branded images. The team bulk-uploaded OG images for the 12 most-shared pages before launch.

What NOT to use this for

How this connects to other features

Before you start

Before beginning the audit, have the following ready:

Allow at least two hours for a site of 10–30 pages. Larger sites with 50+ pages may need a full day of focused attention.

• Admin access to the SGEN site on staging.
• A list of all pages and posts that will be live at launch — know your total page count so you can confirm every page is covered.
• The production domain name that will be used at launch — you will need it to confirm canonical URLs and sitemap references are pointing to the right domain.
• If this is a migration or redesign: a list of the old URLs from the previous site, so you can verify that redirects are in place for each one.

Where to go

The audit touches several areas of the SGEN admin:

• Pages — Admin → Pages for the full list and individual edit screens
• Blog posts — Admin → Blog for all published posts
• Settings → SEO — Admin → Settings → SEO for site-level defaults
• Settings → Sitemap — Admin → Settings → Sitemap
• Settings → Robots — Admin → Settings → Robots
• Redirects — Admin → Redirects

Steps — the pre-launch SEO audit

1. Audit every page for SEO title and meta description

Every public page needs a unique SEO title and meta description. Pages with missing or duplicate titles and descriptions are at a disadvantage in search results — they display generic placeholders or truncated body text to search engine users rather than purposefully written, accurate summaries.

To audit page metadata:

1. Go to Admin → Pages.
2. Open each Active page and click the SEO tab on the edit screen.
3. Check the SEO Title field. It should: - Be unique — no two pages should have the same title. - Contain the page's primary keyword. - Be under 60 characters so it displays in full in search results. - Follow the pattern: Page name — Site name.
4. Check the Meta Description field. It should: - Be unique — copy the same discipline as titles. - Summarise what the page is about in 1–2 sentences. - Be under 155 characters. - Not duplicate the title verbatim.

Mark any page with a missing or duplicate title or description as needing a fix. Complete all fixes before moving to the next audit step. A page with a duplicate or missing SEO title is not ready for launch.

2. Confirm canonical URLs point to the production domain

Canonical URL tags tell search engines which version of a URL is the definitive one. During development on staging, canonical tags may be set to the staging domain — or left empty, which causes search engines to infer the canonical from the page URL, which will be the staging domain. If these are not updated before launch, search engines may index the staging URL instead of the production URL, creating a split-signal problem that can take months to fully resolve.

For each page and post:

1. Open the edit screen and click the SEO tab.
2. Find the Canonical URL field.
3. Confirm it is set to the production domain URL for this page.

In Admin → Settings → SEO, check the Site canonical base URL setting. If this is set to the staging domain, update it to the production domain before launch. This base URL affects the canonical tag on every page unless a per-page override is in place.

After updating the site-level canonical base, spot-check five pages from different areas of the site to confirm their canonical URLs now reflect the production domain.

3. Review the sitemap and confirm production domain

SGEN generates a sitemap automatically from your Active pages and published posts. The sitemap URL is typically /sitemap.xml at your domain root. Before launch, confirm two things: the sitemap is being generated, and it references the production domain in every URL entry.

To check the sitemap:

1. Go to Admin → Settings → Sitemap.
2. Confirm the sitemap is enabled.
3. Check the Domain setting — it should reflect the production domain, not the staging domain.
4. Review the Excluded pages list. Confirm no pages that should be indexed are excluded.
5. Save and then open the sitemap URL in a browser tab to review the actual XML output.

If the sitemap domain is set to the staging domain, update it to the production domain before launch. On launch day, after the DNS switch is complete, submit the sitemap to the relevant search consoles (Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools) using the production sitemap URL.

4. Confirm the robots configuration allows indexing

During staging and development, it is standard practice to configure the robots settings to prevent crawlers from indexing the site. Before launch, this configuration must be updated to allow indexing on the production domain, or the site will not be crawled and indexed after the domain switch.

To review the robots configuration:

1. Go to Admin → Settings → Robots.
2. Check the Crawling setting. On a pre-launch staging site, this is often set to Block all crawlers or No index, no follow. This must be changed to Allow indexing before or immediately after the domain switch.
3. If there are specific pages you want to exclude from indexing — for example, a thank-you page, a login page, or an admin-facing landing page — set those pages' individual robots directive to noindex via their SEO tab, rather than using a site-wide block.

Confirm the change applies correctly by opening the /robots.txt URL on the staging site and reading the output. The production configuration should show Allow: / for pages you want indexed.

5. Check all redirects for old URLs

If this site is replacing an existing site — whether a previous version, a migration from another CMS, or a domain rename — create a redirect for every old URL that had meaningful traffic, was linked to externally, or was bookmarked by regular visitors.

To audit redirects:

1. Go to Admin → Redirects.
2. Review the list of configured redirects. Compare it against your list of old URLs from the previous site.
3. For any old URL that does not have a redirect, create one now: - Set the Source to the old path (e.g., /old-page-slug). - Set the Destination to the new correct URL on the SGEN site. - Set the redirect type to 301 Permanent for URLs that have moved permanently.
4. After adding all redirects, test each one by visiting the old URL and confirming it routes to the correct destination.

Redirects should be in place before the domain is switched. Configuring them after launch risks a window where old URLs return 404 errors — which harms both user experience and any accumulated link authority those URLs had built.

6. Set Open Graph images for key pages

Open Graph images control how links appear when shared on social platforms. Pages without OG images generate generic or blank previews when shared — a missed opportunity on pages you expect visitors to share or that appear in paid campaigns.

At minimum, set OG images for:

• Homepage
• Blog post category index
• Any page used in paid or organic social media campaigns
• Any page with a strong share incentive (recipes, guides, resource pages)

To add an OG image to a page:

1. Open the page edit screen — Admin → Pages → Edit.
2. Click the SEO tab.
3. Find the Open Graph Image field.
4. Select an image from the Media Library (recommended dimensions: 1200 × 630 pixels, JPEG format, under 200 KB).
5. Also fill in the OG Title and OG Description fields if they are separate from the SEO title and meta description on the page edit screen.
6. Click Save.

What success looks like

What to do if it does not work

If the SEO configuration cannot be confirmed from the admin screens — for example, if settings are not saving, or if the sitemap URL is returning an error — collect the following before contacting SGEN support:

1. A screenshot of the specific settings screen that is not behaving correctly.
2. The URL of the sitemap (the /sitemap.xml path on the staging domain) and a screenshot of the output or error.
3. The production domain name you are launching on.
4. The date of the planned launch.

Providing the launch date helps support prioritise your report appropriately.

Pre-launch SEO audit — summary checklist

Common pre-launch SEO mistakes

Forgetting to update the robots configuration. The staging block is intentional during development, but it is easy to forget to remove it before launch. A site launched with crawlers blocked will not be indexed, and the absence of organic traffic in the weeks after launch is the typical signal that this was missed.

Leaving canonical URLs pointing to staging. Search engines that crawl the staging domain before the domain switch can index the staging URL. When the production domain launches, the engine sees what looks like duplicate content at a new URL — and the staging URL may outrank the production URL briefly. Updating canonicals to the production domain before launch, or blocking the staging domain entirely from crawling, prevents this.

Missing redirect map. Every old URL without a redirect is a potential 404 for visitors arriving from bookmarks or external links. Build the redirect map before launch, not after.

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