Confirm the agreed deliverables
Compare the final pages and features against the approved scope. Separate defects from new requests.
A free resource for independent web studios
The website
launch checklist.
15 practical checks for the last mile: what a crawler can observe, what a person needs to test, and what your client should receive.
Reviewed 17 October 2026 · Free to adapt · No signup to readScope and content
Read the actual copy
Check business names, pricing, addresses, phone numbers, final images and any placeholder text.
Check ownership and permissions
Record who owns the domain, hosting, third-party accounts and asset licenses. Keep credentials in a password manager, not a handoff report.
Pages and discoverability
Check important URLs
Open every key page and navigation route. Record redirects, response errors, broken internal destinations and the custom 404 experience.
Review search declarations
Check titles, descriptions, canonical URLs and production indexing rules. Remove staging-only noindex only when the site is meant to be public.
Confirm robots and sitemap
Check the production robots.txt and XML sitemap. Keep private project dashboards and client share links out of search.
Real user journeys
Submit every form
Verify required-field errors, success states and that the message actually reaches the intended inbox. Finding a form in HTML is not a delivery test.
Walk the mobile path
On a real phone, use the menu, follow the main call to action, check text and tap targets, and look for horizontal overflow.
Test critical transactions
If the site has bookings, purchases or accounts, test their actual end-to-end flows, cancellation and failure states. Use authorized test modes before making charges.
Accessibility and measurement
Review keyboard access
Tab through navigation and forms. Check visible focus, logical order, labels and whether interactive controls work without a mouse.
Review accessible content
Check meaningful headings, useful alt text, contrast, zoom and screen-reader basics. A lightweight review is not a comprehensive conformance audit.
Verify measurement and consent
Confirm the actual analytics events and the intended consent behavior, where applicable. The presence of a script does not prove events arrive.
The client handoff
Assign every open item
Write down the issue, evidence, responsible person and next step. Leave untested items explicitly marked as not tested.
Record what was reviewed
Include the production URL, review date, scan coverage, reviewer names and any exclusions. Avoid a blanket “everything passed” statement.
Share a version and keep a copy
Send one report or document with the open items included. Record receipt of that version and save an export for your own records.
Give the checklist a home.
HandoffTrail brings bounded site checks, manual review, open issues and a private client report into one project. The first project is free.
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