The eight weeks after a relaunch

Problems that appear in the first weeks are cheap to fix and easy to trace. The same problems discovered in three months are expensive, and by then nobody remembers what changed.

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In the first week check enquiries daily and verify the contact path still works. Weekly for two months, watch Search Console for pages that cannot be reached, check your best converting pages individually, and confirm indexing of key pages. Expect some movement in rankings; expect none in whether the form works.

Week one: is anything broken?

The first days are about function rather than performance. Enquiries arriving, forms delivering, calls connecting, pages loading, redirects landing where they should.

Check enquiries daily against what you would normally expect. A sharp fall in the first days is almost always a broken contact path rather than a search problem, because search does not move that fast.

Weeks two to eight: the search picture

Now the slower signals appear. Watch Search Console weekly for pages it cannot reach, indexing status for your important pages, and any warnings that were not there before.

Some ranking movement is normal after a rebuild, even a well-executed one, as search engines re-crawl and re-evaluate. Sustained decline over several weeks is different and worth investigating properly.

  • Pages reported as unreachable or excluded.
  • Indexing status of your best pages.
  • New warnings that were absent before launch.
  • Enquiries by page, compared with before.
  • Speed on a phone, which often worsens after a launch.

Watch your best pages individually

A site-wide figure can hide the thing that matters. Your three or four converting pages should be checked on their own, because a fall there outweighs a rise everywhere else.

If one of them drops, compare the old and new versions element by element. The cause is usually something small that nobody thought worth mentioning at the time.

Normal versus alarming

Normal: some ranking fluctuation for a few weeks, a temporary dip in indexed pages while re-crawling happens, small changes in how visitors move through the site.

Alarming: enquiries falling immediately, pages returning errors, key pages not indexed after several weeks, or a steady decline that does not stabilise. The first is a broken mechanism; the others usually mean something in the migration was missed.

Keep a dated log

Write down every fix and change you make in these weeks, with dates. There will be many, and in two months you will want to know which one preceded a movement.

This log is also what turns a stressful period into learning. Businesses that keep one handle their next launch far better than businesses that rely on memory.

Do not start optimising too early

There is a strong temptation to begin changing things in week two because a number moved. Resist it while the site is still settling, or you will be unable to separate the effects of the launch from the effects of your changes.

Fix what is broken immediately. Leave improvements until the picture is stable, which is usually around the second month.

How Licheo handles the weeks after launch

Enquiries are watched closely, because problems show up there before they appear in any ranking report, and the converting pages are checked individually rather than as part of a total.

Fixes are dated and recorded, so the eventual assessment is based on a record rather than on anybody's recollection.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Redesign and revenue. The other parts:

Questions people ask

What should I check after a website relaunch?
Enquiries daily in the first week and the contact path end to end, then weekly for two months: unreachable pages in Search Console, indexing of key pages, your converting pages individually, and mobile speed.
Is it normal for rankings to move after a redesign?
Some movement is normal for a few weeks while search engines re-crawl and re-evaluate. A sustained decline that does not stabilise is different and usually means something in the migration was missed.
Enquiries dropped immediately after launch. What is it?
Almost certainly a broken contact path rather than search, because search does not move that fast. Submit a real enquiry from a phone and confirm it arrives where a person will see it.
Why watch individual pages rather than the total?
Because a site-wide figure can look stable while your best converting page has stopped producing. A fall there outweighs a rise everywhere else, and it is the loss that actually costs money.
When can I start making improvements?
Fix anything broken immediately, but leave improvements until the picture stabilises, usually around the second month. Changing things while the site is settling makes both effects impossible to separate.

Watch the weeks that matter

Enquiries watched closely, converting pages checked individually, and every fix dated so the assessment rests on a record.

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