Website Launch Checklist

How to Use the Website Launch Checklist

Assign an owner to each category and require evidence for every completed item: a tested URL, a screenshot, a recorded event, a backup reference, or an approval. Check the live or final staging environment rather than relying only on design files and editor previews.

Some items need specialist review. Privacy, accessibility, security, taxes, payments, and regulated-industry requirements depend on the business, market, technology, and jurisdiction. The checklist helps organize QA; it does not replace professional legal, security, or compliance advice.

Launch Is a Controlled Change, Not a Single Click

Record the before state, the release window, the person who can roll back, and the condition that triggers rollback. After launch, check important pages without an admin session, submit real test forms only when authorized, confirm conversion measurement, and monitor error logs and uptime. Recheck after caches, DNS, redirects, and CDN settings settle.

Search discovery after launch

Google can discover public pages automatically, but important content must be crawlable and internally linked. Verify Search Console ownership, submit the canonical sitemap, and inspect critical URLs. Submission is a discovery request—not a guarantee of indexing or ranking. See Google’s basic checklist for appearing in Search.