Website launch checklist: what to check before and after you go live

Before launch

Content and templates

• Every page type has a unique title, a meta description and one H1. Check a sample with the meta tag checker.
• Social sharing shows the right image and text. Preview it with the Open Graph checker.
• Images carry alt text, and decorative images an empty alt="".
• Structured data is valid on the home page and the main templates.
• A real 404 page answers with HTTP 404.

The url plan

• List every url of the old site from its sitemap and analytics.
• Map each old url to its new equivalent. Redirect permanently with a 301 or 308, in a single hop.
• Redirect pages with no equivalent to the closest relevant page, not all to the home page.
• Update internal links to the new urls, so they never rely on redirects.

Launch day

1. Remove the staging blockers. The noindex tag or header, the Disallow: / in robots.txt, the password protection.
2. Pick one host and one protocol. https only, with or without www, the other redirecting. Confirm with the redirect checker.
3. Publish the sitemap and declare it in robots.txt.
4. Run a full audit on the live home page, then a standard audit to sample the site. Fix anything critical or high immediately.
5. Verify indexability of the five most important pages with the indexability checker.
6. Submit the sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and request indexing for the key pages.

The first weeks

• Watch for 404s in Search Console and in your server logs. Add redirects for old urls you missed.
• Watch the coverage report. Pages that drop out or are excluded point at template problems.
• Measure speed with real visitors once field data arrives, about four weeks in.
• Monitor daily. Set up a monitor with alerts, so a hotfix that reintroduces a noindex or breaks HTTPS is caught the same day.

Redesigns and migrations

A redesign on the same domain needs the url plan above. A domain change needs more:

• Redirect every old url, on every old hostname, to the matching new url.
• Keep the old domain and its certificate active, so the redirects keep working.
• Use the change of address tool in Search Console.
• Update the profiles and directories that link to you.