Website Launch Checklist: 12 Points Before Go-Live

A website launch checklist is not bureaucratic ballast but your insurance against overlooking something embarrassing or expensive on go-live day. After many launches for companies and shops in Vienna and across the DACH region, I know this: nearly every false start has the same causes – a forgotten redirect, a page Google accidentally is not allowed to see, a missing legal notice. This checklist walks through the twelve points that genuinely have to be right before going live, split into technology, content and tests. Use it as a template – and tick off every point deliberately.

Over many projects I have condensed these twelve points into a fixed order. It is deliberately arranged so that the riskiest things come first – because a forgotten redirect does more damage than a typo, even if the latter is more visible. Work the list from top to bottom, and do not tick anything off wholesale that you have not actually checked.

Technology: the invisible foundation

The technical points are the ones nobody sees as long as they are right – and that really hurt when they are missing. This is exactly where the most expensive launch mistakes happen.

1. Set redirects cleanly

The most important and most frequently forgotten point in a relaunch. If URLs change, every old address must point to its new target via a 301 redirect. Otherwise visitors and Google run into error pages – and the visibility built up over years collapses. Check every important old URL individually, not just the homepage. Especially treacherous are pages that have few visitors but good positions on Google – they only surface weeks later, when the traffic quietly disappears. A list of the previous URLs with their new targets is half the battle; without it, setting the redirects becomes guesswork.

2. SSL and HTTPS everywhere

The site must run consistently over HTTPS, with a valid certificate. Watch for mixed content – a single image still loaded over HTTP throws a browser warning that costs trust. Also check that the site automatically redirects from HTTP to HTTPS and that both variants do not stay reachable in parallel, because duplicate addresses confuse Google and dilute your visibility.

3. robots.txt and sitemap

The classic among disasters: on the staging environment the site was blocked from Google, and that block travels along at go-live. Check that the site is indexable, that no „noindex” directive still clings to important pages, and that a current XML sitemap exists and is submitted in Search Console. This one overlooked checkbox has kept entire relaunches invisible for weeks without anyone spotting the reason – a mistake that costs nothing but attention, yet gets expensive when nobody notices it.

4. Backups before and after go-live

A full backup right before switching over is your lifeline if something goes wrong. And set up an ongoing backup plan immediately, not „sometime later”. What such a plan looks like and why it counts in an emergency is part of ongoing website care and maintenance. A backup that cannot be cleanly restored in an emergency is no backup – test once whether the snapshot actually restores before you rely on it.

Legal: where it gets serious in Austria

In the DACH region – and especially in Austria – the legal obligations are not optional but mandatory. Overlook them and you risk warnings and fines. These points belong before go-live, not after.

5. Complete legal notice (Impressum)

In Austria, disclosure under the E-Commerce Act and Media Act is mandatory: full name, address, contact details, and for businesses the company register and VAT number. An incomplete or missing legal notice is one of the most common reasons for a formal warning.

6. Privacy policy under GDPR

Every site that processes data – and practically every one does – needs a current privacy policy that names concretely which data is collected for what purpose, including analytics tools and external services. Part of this is a working cookie consent that only starts tracking after consent, not before. A common mistake: the analytics tool fires as soon as the page loads, even though the user has not yet consented. Check that tracking really only starts after consent – otherwise the consent banner is pure decoration and does not protect you legally.

Content and presentation

The technology can be perfect – if the site falls apart on mobile or the headline has typos, it still looks unfinished. These points shape the first impression a visitor forms in the first few seconds.

7. Content proofread

Typos, placeholder text, dummy copy still sitting somewhere – read every page one last time. Nothing looks more unprofessional than a „lorem ipsum” on the homepage on launch day.

8. Mobile presentation checked

The majority of your visitors come from a phone. Check every important page on a real smartphone: is everything legible, are buttons easy to hit, does nothing spill over the edge? Looking only at the big screen deceives. Do not test just one device but think about the range of your visitors – a small older phone reveals problems that stay hidden on the latest model. Google indexes primarily the mobile version of your site anyway; what is broken on the phone is broken for Google.

9. Test all links and forms

Click through: does every link reach its target, does every PDF open, and – most importantly – does a test message from the contact form actually arrive? A form that runs into nothing silently costs you every enquiry. Check not only whether the confirmation page appears, but whether the message actually lands in the right inbox and does not vanish into the spam folder. This mistake in particular is treacherous, because everything looks fine from the outside and you never notice the loss.

Analytics and final check

Finally, the points that make sure you are not flying blind after launch – and that the site gets its last polish before it meets real visitors.

10. Analytics tool set up

Without measurement you do not know what works. Set up a privacy-compliant analytics tool – cleanly tied to the cookie consent – so that from day one you see where visitors come from and what they do.

11. Load time and Core Web Vitals

A last look at speed: large images compressed, page responds briskly, layout does not jump? A slow start costs visitors and ranking. What really matters here is in my piece on technical SEO before the content.

12. The what-is-missing walkthrough

The point almost everyone forgets: sit down in front of the finished site with fresh eyes and go through it as a first-time visitor. Is a phone number missing in the header? Is the path to an enquiry clear enough? Is the error page (404) designed or bare? These small gaps often decide more than the big technology. Best of all, let a second person who does not know the project simply complete a task – „find out what this costs and send an enquiry” – and watch where they get stuck. Nothing exposes gaps faster than a real, unbiased look. The exact spots where this test visitor hesitates are the ones that will later cost you customers.

The checklist at a glance

When you have a site set up cleanly from the ground up, many of these points are built in from the start – which is exactly what proper web development is about. The checklist does not replace that, but it makes sure nothing slips through on the decisive day.

Conclusion

A clean launch is not luck but the result of a deliberately ticked-off list. The most expensive mistakes almost always happen at the same points: forgotten redirects, a page accidentally blocked from Google, and an incomplete legal notice. Whoever goes through these twelve points before go-live – technology, legal, content, tests – launches without the embarrassing and expensive surprises that otherwise surface in the first days. Take the half hour. It is the cheapest insurance you can take out for your new website.

Facing a launch or relaunch and want to be sure nothing slips through? Send me a quick message via the contact form. I will check your site before go-live and tell you where something is still missing.