Below is the full checklist organized by category. Check marks are for self-assessment; focus on items marked Critical and High first.
Rendering & Indexing Foundation (Critical)
- ✓ Server-Side Rendering (SSR) or Dynamic Rendering enabled — verify with fetch-as-Googlebot test
- ✓ Meta tags, canonical URLs, and schema markup injected server-side before first paint
- ✓ All distinct content areas have unique, crawlable URLs (no hash routing)
- ✓ Canonical URL points to itself (or preferred version if duplicates exist)
- ✓ JavaScript execution timing verified — critical content present in initial HTML
URL & Metadata Structure (High)
- ✓ Hash-based routing eliminated or replaced with path-based routing
- ✓ Unique <title> and meta description for every page, injected server-side
- ✓ Open Graph and Twitter Card tags present for social sharing
- ✓ robots.txt allows all crawlable routes; no accidental blocks
- ✓ Duplicate content handled via rel="canonical" and GSC parameters
Performance & Crawl Budget (High to Medium)
- ✓ First Contentful Paint under 1.5 seconds, Time to Interactive under 3.5 seconds
- ✓ Code splitting and lazy loading implemented by route
- ✓ Images optimized (WebP format, compression, native lazy loading)
- ✓ JavaScript minified and compressed (GZIP enabled)
- ✓ Crawl budget usage audited in Google Search Console; low-value pages blocked
Schema & Sitemaps (High to Medium)
- ✓ JSON-LD schema markup implemented for relevant content types
- ✓ Schema syntax validated with Rich Results Test tool
- ✓ XML sitemap created and submitted to Google Search Console
- ✓ Pagination markup (rel="next", rel="prev") implemented if applicable
- ✓ Internal links use standard <a href> tags; no JavaScript-driven navigation
Advanced Monitoring (Low to Ongoing)
- ✓ Core Web Vitals tracked weekly via Search Console Core Web Vitals report
- ✓ Third-party scripts audited for load impact; non-critical scripts deferred
- ✓ Crawl error alerts configured in Google Search Console
- ✓ Mobile usability issues resolved
- ✓ Hreflang tags implemented (if multilingual)
- ✓ AMP pages implemented (if applicable)
- ✓ Quarterly re-audit scheduled after major code changes