Technical SEO Change Request Template

Change Request Form (fill-in)

When to use: One form per fix: copy it, fill every field, and hand it to the developer who will build it.

Technical SEO change request

One request, one fix. If you need two changes, write two requests and link them.

Tracker for several requests

Next action

• Owner: [name] - action: [estimate and schedule] by [date]
• Reviewer: [name] - action: run the acceptance checks after release

Completion check

• Every field above is filled, or marked "n/a" with a reason.
• Evidence links open for someone outside the SEO team.
• Each acceptance criterion has a clear pass or fail.
• Rollback steps name a person and a trigger.
• The developer has read it and agreed the scope.

Writing the Evidence

When to use: Attach proof a developer can open and reproduce in minutes, so the request is not argued about in triage.

What to attach

• URL samples: 3 to 5 affected URLs, at least one per affected template, plus one URL that is fine for comparison.
• Crawl export: the filtered rows (URL, status, the failing field) and the crawl date. Link the file, don't paste 500 rows.
• Search Console report: the report name, the issue row, the example URLs it lists and the date you looked.
• Raw HTML: the server response, to show what is in the HTML before JavaScript runs.
• Rendered HTML: from URL Inspection, Test live URL, then View tested page, HTML tab.
• Headers or redirect hops when the issue is a status code, X-Robots-Tag or redirect.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open [URL].
2. View [source / response headers / rendered HTML].
3. Expected: [what should be there].
4. Actual: [what is there].

Tools that help

Run a free website audit to get the affected pages for each issue and a plain-language fix you can paste into the request.

Use Get Source Code of Webpage for raw HTML and HTTP headers, and the Redirect Checker to export each hop as CSV or JSON for the ticket.

Note: the source viewer shows HTML before JavaScript runs. For what Google rendered, use URL Inspection in Search Console.

Impact and Priority

When to use: Explain why this fix deserves sprint time using your own data, not borrowed industry percentages.

Three honest numbers

1. Affected URLs: count them from your crawl, by template.
2. Traffic share: in the Search Console Performance report, add a Pages filter, "URLs containing" [pattern]. Note clicks for the last [3 months] against the site total.
3. Revenue or lead pages: from your own analytics, mark whether the pages convert, and say which.

Write it like this

"[340] category URLs carry [issue]. They earned [x]% of organic clicks in the last [3 months] per Search Console. [All / some] are revenue pages."

What not to write

• Promised ranking or traffic gains. You can't know them in advance.
• Industry averages with no source.
• "Google penalty" for something that is a plain indexing or crawling bug.

Priority guide

Agree the scale with your dev lead once, then reuse it so priority is not renegotiated on every ticket.

Acceptance Criteria

When to use: Turn "fix the SEO issue" into checks anyone on the team can run and mark pass or fail.

Rules for good criteria

• Observable: a tag, header, status code or HTML element you can see.
• Specific: names the URLs or URL pattern to test.
• Binary: pass or fail, no "improved".
• Includes what must not change.

Given / When / Then format

• Given [a production URL on template X], when [Googlebot or a browser requests it], then [the response is 200 with no noindex in HTML or headers].
• Given [a staging URL], when requested, then [noindex is still present].

Ready-made checks

Search Console says validation typically takes up to about two weeks and can take longer, so put the recheck date in the request.

Rollback Plan

When to use: Decide before release how to undo the change, who can call it, and what signal triggers it.

Fill these in before release

• How to undo: [revert commit / toggle flag / restore previous robots.txt]. Keep the previous file or setting attached.
• Who decides: [name], reachable on release day.
• Trigger: [sample URLs return 5xx, wrong redirect target, staging becomes indexable, layout breaks].
• Watch window: [first 24 hours / 7 days], using [crawl, server logs, Search Console].
• After a rollback: reopen the request and add what went wrong to the evidence.

High-risk changes that always need a plan

• robots.txt edits and site-wide meta robots or X-Robots-Tag rules.
• Redirect rules and URL structure changes.
• Canonical logic in shared templates.
• Rendering changes, such as moving content into client-side JavaScript.

Remember: noindex only works if the page is not blocked in robots.txt. A rollback that adds a robots.txt block can hide the noindex from Google.

Jira/Linear Ticket Version

When to use: A plain-text block to paste into Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues or any tracker that strips tables.

Paste-ready ticket

• Title: [SEO] [short fix on template]
• Type: [Bug / Task] | Priority: [P1] | Labels: seo, [template]
• Problem: [one sentence]
• Evidence: [URL samples] | [crawl export link] | [Search Console report + date] | [rendered HTML screenshot]
• Steps to reproduce: 1) open [URL] 2) view [source/headers] 3) expected [x], actual [y]
• Proposed fix: [exact change and file/setting]
• Out of scope: [what not to touch]
• Impact: [URL count, click share, revenue pages] (source: [tool, date range])
• Dependency: [ticket IDs, release, access]
• Acceptance criteria: [ ] [check 1] [ ] [check 2] [ ] [must not change]
• Rollback: [how] | decider: [name] | trigger: [signal]
• Owner: [dev] | SEO reviewer: [name] | Recheck: [date]

Tips for trackers

• Use your tracker's checklist feature for acceptance criteria so each one is ticked off.
• Link, don't attach, large crawl exports. Note the crawl date in the link text.
• Add the SEO reviewer as a watcher so they see the release.
• If the fix spans several templates, use one parent ticket and one child per template.

Worked Example (fictional outdoor gear store)

When to use: A completed request for an invented outdoor gear store whose category pages were accidentally noindexed.

Worked example: Fernwick Outdoor category pages

Example only. The company, people, URLs and figures are invented to show what a usable, filled-in version looks like.

Why this worked

• The evidence came from three places that agreed: crawl, Search Console and rendered HTML.
• The fix was one setting, not a theme rewrite, so it shipped in the next release.
• Acceptance included the staging check, so the fix did not create a new problem.
• Impact used the store's own click share, not a guess.

Next step

Run a free website audit to find indexing issues like this, with the affected pages listed. Spot-check any page as you browse with the seotools.pro SEO Extension.