Dispensary Website Migration SEO Checklist

Before migration: define scope and ownership

Write down what is changing: domain, CMS, URL paths, templates, hosting, location structure, or menu platform. Identify the person responsible for redirects, content approval, analytics, Google Search Console, and launch decisions. Agree on acceptance criteria before development finishes.

Save a recoverable copy of the current site and configuration. Document who can restore service if the new release breaks ordering or critical pages. Where possible, avoid combining an untested URL overhaul with wholesale content removal; multiple simultaneous changes make diagnosis harder.

Build a complete URL inventory

Combine a website crawl, XML sitemaps, Search Console landing pages, analytics, and known backlink destinations. Include location pages, categories, brand pages, products, articles, images, and PDFs where relevant. Record status codes, canonical URLs, titles, H1s, descriptions, and internal links.

Mark high-value pages by actual traffic, useful links, customer actions, and business importance. A store page with modest traffic may still be essential because it carries the address and menu for an entire location.

Before migration: map destinations and page signals

For each old URL, choose a deliberate outcome: keep it, redirect it to a relevant replacement, or retire it when no equivalent exists. Map pages individually before using broad redirect rules. Avoid redirecting every discontinued product or old article to the homepage.

• Preserve useful titles, descriptions, H1s, and core content unless an approved change improves them.
• Update canonical tags to the intended production URLs.
• Carry accurate organization, location, article, and breadcrumb data into the new templates.
• Replace old internal destinations with direct links to final URLs.
• Prepare a sitemap containing the preferred, indexable production pages.

Google’s redirect documentation explains permanent redirect signals. Test the full redirect chain so an old page reaches its final destination directly where practical, rather than passing through several obsolete routes.

Before migration: test staging and menu behavior

Protect staging from unintended public access using appropriate access controls. Track any noindex directives and robots rules added during development. Noindex is not an access-control mechanism, and blocking crawling can prevent a search engine from seeing that directive.

Test representative location, category, product, and article templates. Inspect rendered text and links, not just screenshots. Confirm that staging hostnames are absent from canonical tags, structured data, navigation, and assets intended for production.

Check the dispensary ordering path

With Dutchie, Jane, or another menu, verify store selection, category links, live inventory, pickup and delivery choices, and the supported checkout flow. Preserve useful deep links where the platform allows. Test mobile navigation and age-gate behavior without completing an unintended purchase.

Carry forward approved analytics settings and verify important events. Record where third-party menus limit attribution so a tracking gap is not mistaken for lost demand.

Launch: run a short, explicit acceptance checklist

1. Confirm production pages and assets respond correctly over HTTPS.
2. Activate and test redirects from important old URLs.
3. Remove development-only indexing restrictions from pages intended for search.
4. Inspect production robots.txt, canonical tags, metadata, schema, and sitemap URLs.
5. Follow location-to-menu journeys on desktop and mobile.
6. Confirm analytics and Search Console verification remain available.
7. Submit the current sitemap and record the launch time for reporting.

For an eligible domain move, review Search Console’s Change of Address process; it is not necessary for every redesign. Google’s site-move guidance explains the conditions and recommends keeping redirects for at least a year.

Do not approve launch based only on the homepage. Check a sample from every important template and each distinct store-menu integration. Record failures with the URL, expected behavior, observed result, and responsible owner.

After migration: monitor evidence and resolve exceptions

Review availability, redirects, and ordering immediately after release. Continue checking Search Console indexing, selected canonicals, sitemap processing, and landing-page trends as the move is processed. Compare old and new URL groups rather than reading only sitewide totals.

Watch for errors from unrecorded old URLs, redirect loops, missing images, orphaned pages, and menu links that expired during the transition. The indexing diagnostic guide helps investigate specific pages without guessing at the cause.

Use the SEO measurement guide to separate search changes from analytics changes. Do not respond to a short-term fluctuation by repeatedly rewriting redirects or changing canonicals without evidence.

Common migration mistakes and a practical handoff

The most avoidable problems are missing URL inventories, unrelated redirects, leftover noindex rules, stale menu destinations, and deleted tracking configurations. Keep the redirect map, test results, unresolved issues, and monitoring owners together so responsibility does not disappear after launch.

Dispensary SEO Services can help plan a technical SEO migration review around your existing website and menu setup. Bring the proposed platform, URL changes, and launch timeline so the discussion can focus on concrete dependencies.

Frequently Asked Questions