Content and working journeys
Follow every menu item, footer link and service button. Remove draft copy and unused links. Check the phone number and contact details. Open the site while logged out: an administrator may see content or assets unavailable to customers. On a multilingual site, check equivalent internal pages as well as homepages.
Test the form through to a reply
Send a clearly labelled test enquiry and confirm receipt in the destination inbox. Check the subject, accented characters, selected service and Reply-To header. Choosing Reply should address the email entered by the tester, not the technical sender. Then try a missing required field and an invalid email. A success message alone does not prove delivery.
URLs and search visibility
Record the existing URLs. Where an address changes, prepare a suitable redirect and update links. Check canonical tags, the sitemap and robots directives. Keep staging protected; production must not accidentally inherit an indexing block. An accessible URL listed in a sitemap is not necessarily indexed by Google.
Release with a way back
Identify exactly what the release changes and how to restore the previous state. Do not overwrite recent orders or enquiries with an old database copy. On a phone, check navigation, forms, text width and images. After launch, clear cache, repeat the important checks and record results. Compare laboratory measurements using consistent settings.
Use an acceptance log instead of “looks fine”
For each check, record URL, language, device, expected outcome, result and owner. Include navigation, equivalent-language switching, valid and invalid form input, email receipt, cookie refusal, phone links and horizontal overflow. Do not make a real payment to test a service brochure site.
When to hold the release
Do not release if content disappears, enquiries are lost, production has noindex or rollback would overwrite current data. Track cosmetic differences separately with a priority and owner. After switching, repeat the same list without an administrator session and after clearing cache.