I'm building a migration checklist for redirects canonicals and sitemaps what should be included?

Here’s a practical migration checklist for redirects, canonicals, and sitemaps. I’ve organized it so you can turn it directly into a project checklist.

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1) Redirects

Inventory and mapping

• Export a full list of all existing indexable URLs
• Identify URLs that are:
  • staying the same
  • changing URL structure
  • being removed
  • consolidating into one page
• Map every old URL to the most relevant new URL
• Ensure redirects are one-to-one where possible
• Avoid redirecting many old pages to a generic homepage unless truly appropriate

Redirect type

• Use 301 redirects for permanent migrations
• Avoid chains and loops
• Make sure old URLs resolve directly to final destination in one hop
• Check HTTP vs HTTPS consistency
• Check www vs non-www consistency
• Check trailing slash consistency
• Check lowercase/uppercase URL consistency if relevant
• Preserve query strings where needed

Technical implementation

• Implement redirects at the server/CDN level where possible
• Test redirects in staging before launch
• Confirm redirects work for:
  • desktop
  • mobile
  • international versions
  • parameters
  • image/file URLs if applicable
• Validate redirect behavior for removed content and deleted products/pages

QA checks

• Crawl old URLs to confirm proper status codes
• Verify old pages return 301, not 404, 302, or soft-404
• Confirm destination pages return 200
• Identify redirect chains
• Identify redirect loops
• Check that canonicals and internal links point to the final destination URLs

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2) Canonicals

Sitewide audit

• Review canonical tags on all templates
• Ensure every indexable page has a self-referential canonical or a clearly intentional canonical
• Confirm canonical URLs are:
  • absolute
  • indexable
  • final destination URLs
  • consistent with redirects

Canonical rules

• Canonicals should point to the preferred version of the content
• Avoid canonicalizing to redirected URLs
• Avoid canonicalizing to non-200 URLs
• Avoid canonicalizing all variants to the homepage unless it is appropriate
• Ensure paginated pages, filters, and sort parameters use the intended canonical logic
• Ensure duplicate or near-duplicate pages have the correct canonical target

Migration-specific checks

• Old URLs do not remain canonical targets
• New pages self-canonicalize unless there is a deliberate consolidation
• Alternate versions of content point to the chosen canonical
• Hreflang references, if used, match canonical URL versions
• Canonicals are aligned with redirects and internal linking

QA checks

• Crawl site and compare canonical tags vs final URLs
• Confirm no canonical chains
• Confirm no conflicting signals:
  • internal links point to one URL
  • canonical points to another
  • sitemap lists a third
  • redirects go somewhere else

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3) Sitemaps

Sitemap content

• Include only canonical, indexable URLs
• Remove:
  • redirected URLs
  • 404/410 URLs
  • noindex URLs
  • non-canonical duplicates
• Update sitemap entries to final destination URLs
• Ensure sitemap URLs return 200 status
• Keep sitemap clean and current

Sitemap structure

• Split into logical sitemap files if needed:
  • pages
  • products
  • categories
  • blog/content
  • images/video if applicable
• Keep under protocol limits:
  • 50,000 URLs per sitemap
  • 50MB uncompressed per file
• Use a sitemap index file if there are multiple sitemaps

Formatting and submission

• Ensure XML format is valid
• Include correct lastmod values if maintained reliably
• Submit updated sitemap to:
  • Google Search Console
  • Bing Webmaster Tools
• Update sitemap references in robots.txt if applicable

QA checks

• Crawl sitemap URLs and verify each returns 200
• Confirm sitemap URLs match canonical URLs exactly
• Verify no old URLs remain in submitted sitemaps
• Confirm sitemap reflects the live site, not staging

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4) Cross-checks between redirects, canonicals, and sitemaps

This is the most important part of the migration.

• Old URL redirects to new URL
• New URL is self-canonicalized
• New URL is included in sitemap
• Internal links point to new URL
• No sitemap URL redirects
• No canonical URL redirects
• No internal links point to old URLs
• No mixed signals between XML sitemap, canonical tags, and redirects

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5) Monitoring after launch

• Monitor crawl errors in Search Console
• Check indexed pages and excluded pages
• Track rankings and traffic for priority pages
• Look for spikes in 404s
• Monitor server logs for crawl anomalies
• Re-crawl old and new URLs after launch
• Validate that search engines are picking up the new URLs
• Keep redirects live long enough, ideally indefinitely for important URLs

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6) Useful deliverables to create

• URL mapping spreadsheet
• Redirect implementation sheet
• Canonical audit sheet
• Sitemap inventory
• QA checklist with pass/fail status
• Post-launch monitoring report

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If you want, I can turn this into a spreadsheet-ready checklist, a migration SOP, or a pre-launch / launch-day / post-launch version.