What I check before I launch a website

Launch is not the moment when we “have a look”. It is the moment the site has to answer on its own. My list is short because a long one does not get used. I keep the same idea as in transport: you check before you leave, not after you arrive with the door open.

Checks I do not skip

• The contact form sends, has CSRF, and a clear success or error message.
• Menu and footer links go where they should, including legal pages and languages.
• On a phone, buttons do not overlap and the text stays readable.
• 404 and 500 pages do not dump an ugly error.
• Title, description and canonical exist on the main pages.
• Sitemap and robots.txt are not fighting each other.

Then I read the home page as a stranger. If in 20 seconds you cannot tell who I am, what I do and how to reach me, the structure is wrong. On ionelnistor.ro I wanted exactly that: UK HGV driver, custom websites, contact. No extra poetry.

After launch

I watch whether mail arrives, whether Google gets the sitemap and whether the logs stay quiet. A “finished” site that is not checked for a week is just an uploaded file. Maintenance is part of delivery, not an extra sold later when something has already broken.