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The Website Launch Checklist

The 65-check pre-launch, launch-day, and post-launch audit Kritano runs automatically.

Don't ship a broken site. The checklist agencies print and run with clients in the final week before launch.

For: Agencies running launches, developers shipping new sites, founders

What is inside

The 65 checks every website should pass before going live. Items marked [critical] are blockers; do not flip the DNS until they are green.

The structure

  • T minus 7 days. Domain and DNS, content audit, SEO foundations, performance, accessibility, security, analytics, backups.
  • T minus 1 day. Final smoke test, forms, payment flow, monitoring.
  • Launch day. Pre-flight, the DNS flip, first hour.
  • T plus 24 hours. Real-traffic re-audit, sitemap submission, error triage.
  • T plus 7 days. Long-tail issues, Core Web Vitals on real-user data, retro.

A sample of the critical items

  • Production domain is registered to the client (not to the agency).
  • robots.txt allows production crawling (NOT the staging-mode Disallow: /).
  • HSTS header is set with a year-long max-age and the preload flag.
  • Run an automated accessibility scan against every template. Aim for zero violations on the homepage.
  • A full backup of the production database has been taken and a restore has been tested in the last 7 days.
  • Final smoke test on a real production-like environment (same DNS, same TLS, same database). Not staging.

Get the full 65-check version below, organised by launch timeline.

A 65-check launch checklist organised by timeline: T minus 7 days, T minus 1 day, launch day, T plus 24 hours, T plus 7 days, and ongoing. Critical items are flagged. Covers domain and DNS, content audit, SEO foundations, performance, accessibility, security, analytics, backups, on-call, and post-launch monitoring.