Facts and enquiries
Incorrect claims or prices, a failed form, a broken booking route or a payment problem need attention before visitors are sent to the site.
Before you call it live
A website launch is a series of checks.
The design can look finished while an enquiry goes nowhere, an old link breaks or a missing page pretends to be the homepage. Use this checklist before launch and again on the live domain. It focuses on what a business owner can verify and what a provider should be able to demonstrate.
Decide what stops the launch
Fix the route to the customer first.
Priorities matter. A small wording improvement can follow; a broken contact route or lost domain control cannot. Ask the provider to show the live result, not merely mark an internal task complete.
Domain and old links
For a replacement site, check the domain, business email and the old URLs that people already use. A working homepage does not prove the move is safe.
Search reporting
Check crawl access and the sitemap when the site is live. Search Console can take time to update, so separate a live technical check from a delayed report.
A working launch sheet
Ten checks you can actually run.
Tick each item only after seeing the result. Your ticks stay in this browser; the list does not send information to UpOnUp. Print the page if you prefer to review it with someone else.
For a redesign, start with an inventory of old pages and their closest useful destinations. Our redesign checklist goes into that mapping; our provider handover guide covers domain, DNS and email access.
A real issue on this site
The page looked fine. The status was wrong.
When we tested the first UpOnUp deployment, a made-up URL showed the homepage and returned HTTP 200, the status for a successful page. A visitor could be confused, and a search engine would not receive a clear missing-page signal.
We added a designed 404 page and checked that invented and retired addresses now return HTTP 404. We also checked that the real homepage and service pages still return 200. That is a launch check, not a claim that the site has earned a ranking.
What “search ready” should meanBEFORE THE FIX200
Missing URL returned the homepage
AFTER THE FIX404
Missing URL clearly says page not found
Test a URL you know does not exist. The page shown and the HTTP response both matter.
The week after publication
Launch is a handover, not the last test.
Keep the owner involved. The right checks after launch depend on whether this is a new site or a replacement of one that already had visitors and links.
Test where visitors arrive.
Open the live domain on a phone and a desktop. Follow a service route, submit the actual enquiry form and check receipt. For a replacement site, open several old links rather than only the homepage.
Read the current signals.
Check Search Console's latest crawl and sitemap dates, review errors, and ask whether enquiries reach the team. A sitemap submission is a discovery hint, not proof that Google has indexed every page.
Improve what people need.
Look for real search questions and real customer questions. Strengthen pages that answer them incompletely. Do not add near-identical pages just to increase a site count.
Google explains that a real missing page should return 404 or 410, a moved page should redirect to a relevant replacement, and a crawl request does not guarantee indexing. Read its crawl error guidance, site move guidance and recrawl guidance.