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Website Launch Checklist

Before actually publishing your site, it is worth doing a complete check.

This checklist does not aim to cover every advanced scenario. It focuses on catching the most commonly missed issues on a first launch.

1. Accessibility Check​

  • Homepage is accessible
  • Deep pages are directly accessible
  • Bare domain and www behavior is as expected
  • HTTP to HTTPS redirect is as expected
  • Works on both mobile and desktop

2. Domain and DNS Check​

  • Resolution records point to the correct target
  • Authoritative DNS provider is clear
  • Nameservers have been switched correctly
  • Basic verification is complete after changes

3. HTTPS Check​

  • Certificate is valid
  • Domain coverage is complete
  • No obvious mixed content
  • Redirect chain is not too long

4. Content and Path Check​

  • Main navigation is reachable
  • Key documents do not 404
  • Image, stylesheet, and script paths are correct
  • Common entry pages have been created

5. Cache and Asset Check​

  • HTML and static asset cache policies are separated
  • Large images are compressed
  • Assets suitable for long-term caching have a versioning strategy
  • After CDN integration, old content is not stuck serving stale versions

6. Search and Basic SEO Check​

  • Page titles are generally accurate
  • robots.txt has no low-level misconfigurations
  • sitemap is available
  • Key documents have internal links between them

7. Monitoring and Rollback Preparation​

  • At least basic access analytics or logs are in place
  • You know where the build output comes from
  • You know how to roll back to the previous version if a deployment fails
  • You know how to verify after changing DNS / cache

8. Additional Checks For the Server Route​

If you are using server deployment, also check:

  • Nginx configuration is active
  • Application process is stable
  • Port exposure is as expected
  • Logs are viewable
  • Services recover after a restart

Purpose of This Checklist​

It is not about achieving perfection in one pass. It is about avoiding these typical mistakes:

  • Domain opens but certificate is wrong
  • Homepage opens but deep links 404
  • Page opens but all assets are missing
  • CDN is connected but cache policies are a mess
  • Site is publicly launched with no awareness of its actual state

What To Review​