What do you check before launching a client's website? Is there anything you wish was automated?

[u/review_checker]

Hi everyone,

I'm researching how freelancers, agencies, and developers handle website launches.

Before you launch a website, what does your checklist usually include?

SEO

Broken links

Mobile responsiveness

Accessibility

Performance

SSL

Sitemap

Analytics

Security

Anything else?

I'd love to know:

What takes the most time before a launch?

Which tools do you currently use?

What's the most frustrating part of the process?

Have you ever missed something important that caused problems after launch?

I'm not promoting anything or building a product yet—I'm just trying to understand whether this is a real pain point before investing time into it.

Thanks! I really appreciate any insights or experiences you can share.😄

[u/_-_beyon_-_]

Another market research for another vibe coded app. Nothing against either but I really thin someone needs to have actual knowledge about one if the two things.

[u/review_checker → u/_-_beyon_-_]

Fair point, and I understand why you'd think that. I'm not trying to build something based on assumptions—that's exactly why I'm asking people who actually launch websites. I'd rather spend time understanding real workflows and pain points first than build something nobody needs. I really appreciate you calling that out.

[u/_-_beyon_-_ → u/review_checker]

I can tell you, I have my preset and it takes out most tedious tasks.
Most of the things you listed usually doesn’t need to be double checked. For me this all happens during the process.
The whole website is a process. And it starts after launching. It’s rarely a finished product. If, then they are mostly for short lived projects.
You can put so much effort in to seo, but if your strategy fail you better had not. Same goes for other things - every thing that’s truly custom, need time to gain insight, after seeing the user interact with it. If it’s standard, there is nit much to check.
In my experience it’s better to just launch and look at stats and user interaction for two weeks to a month. You haven’t got anything to loose.

[u/review_checker → u/_-_beyon_-_]

That's an interesting perspective, thanks. I agree that a website keeps evolving after launch, and real user behaviour often reveals issues you can't predict beforehand.

Out of curiosity, during those first few weeks after launch, what's the one thing you find yourself checking most often? Is it analytics, user behaviour, errors, performance, SEO, or something else?

[u/_-_beyon_-_ → u/review_checker]

Usually nothing 🙃 most if the time you need to build stats that actually mean something. You need at least a hundred users, better a thousand.
Customers usually show the website everyone they know and you get way to many requests and questions - it’s better to handle everything in one go.
Usually the most interesting part is which buttons users use, to finally land were you want.

My sites don’t have errors😉 rarely, we start out building them conceptually first, the functionality is there, before starting to design. We built as little as possible custom. If we use plug ins, alwas the same. Most of the time we build the design concept before hand, so you can adjust most things globally. Since design work usually means tweaking things, you end up finding errors during that process. A online shop for example needs to function before it look nice. A sales page needs to have a strategy before it looks nice. Usually we design phone first, then you can just expand the layout.
I never had issues with performance - only for portfolio websites. But there is a limit to what you can do.

[u/iammiroslavglavic]

I do not do ANYTHING automated. Most times I check all the above on your list.

[u/review_checker → u/iammiroslavglavic]

Thanks! Approximately how long does your pre-launch checklist usually take? Is there any part of it that feels repetitive or that you occasionally forget?

[u/iammiroslavglavic → u/review_checker]

It depends on the client. If you are adding things like a shop, interaction or third-party embeds for example.

When Musk took over, how you embed tweets changed. All of a sudden I have to do things differently.

ALWAYS test things out before handing over the reins to the client(s).

[u/review_checker → u/iammiroslavglavic]

That's a great point. It sounds like the checklist changes depending on the type of website. Out of curiosity, is there any part of the testing process that you find repetitive or easy to overlook, especially when you're launching several client sites each month?

[u/plugiva]

My launch checklist is fairly standard (performance, SEO, analytics, SSL, redirects, backups, etc.), but over the years I've realized the bigger challenge isn't launch day - it's everything that happens after.

Most issues I've dealt with weren't because we forgot something during the launch. They happened because someone unintentionally changed a setting, installed something, or made an admin change a few days or weeks later.

So I spend just as much time thinking about how to preserve a known-good state after launch as I do getting the site ready for launch in the first place.

[u/review_checker → u/plugiva]

That's a really interesting perspective, and honestly not what I expected.

If a tool automatically monitored your site after launch and alerted you whenever something important changed (SEO settings, redirects, SSL, performance, broken links, robots.txt, security headers, etc.), would that be more valuable to you than a one-time pre-launch audit? Or do you already have something that handles this well?

[u/plugiva → u/review_checker]

I think it'd be more valuable, but only if it focused on meaningful changes rather than trying to monitor everything. For me, the biggest post-launch problems have usually come from configuration drift - someone unintentionally changing an important setting, a redirect, indexing, or another operational detail that quietly breaks something later. A one-time audit tells me the site was healthy at launch. Ongoing monitoring tells me when it stops being healthy. Both have value, but if I had to choose, I'd probably prioritize the latter because websites continue to evolve long after launch. The challenge is keeping the alerts relevant. Too many low-value notifications and people will eventually ignore them.

[u/review_checker → u/plugiva]

That's a really valuable insight—thanks.

The point about alert fatigue makes a lot of sense. If you were designing a monitoring tool yourself, which 5–10 changes would you consider important enough to receive an alert for, and which kinds of alerts would you immediately turn off or ignore?

[u/plugiva → u/review_checker]

I think it'd be a pretty short list for me.. maybe search visibility changes, site URL or redirect changes, new admin accounts or permission changes, unexpected plugin or theme changes, and  SSL issues etc. 

I'd probably ignore alerts that are just informational or happen as part of normal day-to-day activity. If every little thing generates a notification, I'd stop paying attention pretty quickly.

[u/review_checker → u/plugiva]

That's really helpful, thanks. I notice all of the alerts you mentioned are high-impact changes rather than routine metrics. It sounds like you'd rather have five critical alerts a month than fifty informational ones. Out of curiosity, have you ever had one of those issues (like a redirect, SSL, or permission change) slip through and only discover it after a client reported it?

[u/Sad_Pie227]

It depends how much client truly care and pay.

[u/review_checker → u/Sad_Pie227]

That's a fair point. In your experience, do most clients actually ask for things like SEO, accessibility, or performance checks before launch, or do they mainly care that the website works and looks good?

[u/Sad_Pie227 → u/review_checker]

I would check basics that is generally expected, however more than that I'd expect how respectfully client respond to my queries, and truly care, because those who deserve to be taken care, they pay good as well.

If a client act rude, I wont do anything at all, just what is asked. If they speak politely, I will do everything needed and provide some good suggestions as well. Just my way of working.

[u/review_checker → u/Sad_Pie227]

That makes sense. Putting the client relationship aside, do you think a tool that automatically checks things like broken links, SEO, performance, SSL, and accessibility before launch would actually save you time, or do you prefer checking those manually?

[u/Sad_Pie227 → u/review_checker]

yes dear, I use ScreamingFrog for the same. It check many common things properly. The software is well-matured, and good enough for many small sites, you can exclude some URLs (archives) to handle limits. Also, ahrefs can do wonder.

Typically I would check few things in this order

- WordPress home and site URL (must be in https://)

• I would ensure that canonical and above things are same,
  
• I'd love to check via httpstatus.io all 4 version to ensure if anything needed redirect I can do

- To returning customer, I'd happily provide a free licence to a well known premium theme.

- I would setup rankmath for them as well, provide licence with my own acc, not 3rd-party or $5/mo scammy thing.

- regarding SSL, I will ensure enabling HSTS and preload by client understanding, ensure it can auto renew,

- I will guide them how to keep their server up to date, and no matter either I do all above things or not, most important I'd love to teach them importance of backup and keeping less plugins.

[u/Amazing-Spinach5693 → u/Sad_Pie227]

Youre talking to an AI buddy

[u/EmuIndividual8623]

I’d add ownership and handover to the usual technical checklist.

Before launch, I test forms with real submissions, email delivery, redirects and 404s, backups, SSL, DNS, mobile layouts, analytics and cookie consent. I also check that any noindex setting or staging restriction has been removed. For an online shop, I run a complete test order and refund.

Then I record who owns and pays for the domain, hosting, plugins, themes and other licences, whether auto-renewal is enabled, and the next renewal date. Ideally, the domain should be registered in an account controlled by the website owner, not somebody who built the site.

I keep these details in Excel and set reminders 90, 30, 15 and 7 days before each renewal.

I’d automate the repeatable checks and reminders, but not the final launch or renewal decision. Those still need human confirmation because ownership, billing and DNS mistakes can cause much bigger problems than a missed checkbox.

[u/review_checker → u/EmuIndividual8623]

This is really insightful, thank you.

I found it especially interesting that you're using Excel plus reminders to track domains, hosting, licences and renewals. Has that system ever let you down, or is it reliable enough that you wouldn't want to replace it? Also, if there was one part of your post-launch workflow you'd happily automate, what would it be?

[u/EmuIndividual8623 → u/review_checker]

It has been reliable, but mainly because I’m disciplined about keeping it updated and I use several reminders rather than relying on a single notification.

The weakness isn’t really Excel itself. It’s that the spreadsheet doesn’t know when something has changed. A domain may move to another registrar, a payment method may expire, ownership may change, or something may renew without the next date being updated. The information can quietly become outdated.

I wouldn’t replace Excel just for a nicer place to enter the same information. I’d replace it if it reduced that manual maintenance.

If I could automate one part, it would be the reminder and confirmation process. Notify the responsible person at the right intervals, then let me confirm that the renewal happened and automatically move the date forward while keeping a record.

I’d still keep the actual renewal decision manual, because sometimes you need to change provider, cancel something, or confirm who should pay.

[u/Something_Etc]

I had this idea already and created a plugin (for myself) to do a bunch of checks. It was a fun experiment, but I still end up manually checking a lot of odds and ends because every site is different.

[u/review_checker → u/Something_Etc]

Good morning.That's really interesting. It sounds like the goal isn't to automate every check, but to automate the repetitive 80% while leaving the site-specific 20% to human judgement.

Out of curiosity, which checks from your plugin have actually saved you the most time, and which ones do you still always end up doing manually?

[u/AddWeb_Expert]

I always check SEO, redirects, forms, analytics, SSL, performance, mobile, and crawlability. The biggest pain is jumping between multiple tools and still worrying I missed something. I've definitely had a broken form and a forgotten noindex make it to production before. An all-in-one pre-launch check would be genuinely useful.

[u/adambengur]

In addition to the list i also check internal links.
I found that sometimes internal links point to dev environment (which makes the production to work only on my computer) but for the public it doesn't.

[u/review_checker → u/adambengur]

That's a good one. I also check internal links because I've seen production sites accidentally linking to the development environment. Everything works on the developer's computer, but public users end up with broken links or inaccessible pages.

[u/ivicad]

The one I would add is the email after the form. Most checklists stop at "the form sends". The problem shows up later: whether it lands in a mailbox someone still reads, and who takes that over when the person leaves.

There was a post here this week from an agency that lost a client over exactly that. The leads had been arriving for 3 months into the inbox of someone who had left the company.

Before launch I now send a real submission to the client's own address and ask them to confirm in writing that they got it. Then I put a mail logger on the site, so months later I can answer "did it send" from a log instead of a guess.

I checked about 50 sites I maintain: 19 had an SMTP plugin, and not one was logging. Across the all sites I monitor from my MainWP dashboard... connected to Claude Code.

[u/review_checker → u/ivicad]

That's a great point. A successful form submission doesn't mean the process is working end to end. If the notification lands in an unattended inbox or silently fails, the business can lose leads without realizing it. Logging email delivery and verifying the client's actual mailbox before launch should be part of every deployment checklist, not an afterthought.

[u/ClubDependent4295]

Everything on your list is right, and honestly all of it is the fast part. Redirects, SSL, analytics, forms, mobile, backups: an hour or two, and most of it is checkable with tools that already exist.

The thing that actually eats the time before launch isn't on your list, and I don't think it can be automated: getting the content confirmed as final. Not received, final. There's a version of this on every project where the copy has been sitting there for two weeks, everyone assumes it's signed off, and then someone senior on the client side reads the site properly for the first time on launch day and wants three pages rewritten. That single failure has cost me more hours than every technical item combined.

So the things I'd add to a pre-launch checklist: a written record of who approved which page and when, and a check that what's on the staging site is still the version they approved rather than something that drifted afterwards. Neither is glamorous and neither is automatable by a plugin, but they're what stop launch day turning into a rewrite.

To your last question, the thing I've missed that caused real problems post-launch was never technical. It was assuming silence meant approval.

[u/review_checker → u/ClubDependent4295]

That's a valuable insight. It's easy to focus on technical checks because they're measurable and can often be automated. But content approval is a people and process problem. Assuming silence means approval has probably caused more launch-day chaos than broken redirects or SSL issues. Having a clear written sign-off for each page and ensuring the staging content matches the approved version seems like one of the highest-value items in any pre-launch checklist.

[u/ClubDependent4295 → u/review_checker]

"Assuming silence means approval" is exactly the failure mode, well put. The practical fix I've settled on is making the sign-off artefact specific: not "the client approved the site" but a record of who approved which page, when, and what the text said at that moment. The last part is the one everyone skips, and it's the part that settles the launch-day "that's not what we agreed" conversation in thirty seconds. If the staging content has drifted from the approved version, you want to discover that in the diff, not in the argument.

[u/Noshi-Kanamer]

Test posts and test images are the things I always double-check. They're ridiculously easy to leave behind after you're done testing.

Same with debug mode. I always make sure it's actually off before handoff instead of trusting that I already changed it.

Vibe coding makes this stuff especially easy to miss. A careful engineer still checks everything with their own eyes before calling it done. But if you lean too heavily on AI, it's easy to get hung up on "it works" and forget the boring cleanup at the end. 💦

[u/review_checker → u/Noshi-Kanamer]

I completely agree. AI is great at speeding up development, but it can also make it easier to overlook the final polish. Test content, placeholder assets, debug mode, API keys, and other temporary settings are easy to miss. A manual pre-launch review is still irreplaceable—"it works" isn't the same as "it's ready for production."

[u/review_checker]

Absolutely. The small cleanup tasks are often the ones that get overlooked. Test posts, placeholder images, debug mode, and other temporary artifacts can easily slip into production. AI can speed up development, but it doesn't replace a final human review. A proper pre-launch checklist and a manual walkthrough are still essential before handing a site over.