Website launch checklist
The 30 checks Skewcheck runs on a page before it goes live, grouped the way they fail. The three that stop a launched site from appearing in Google are noindex left on, a robots.txt that blocks every crawler, and a canonical still pointing at staging. Each check below says what goes wrong; linked ones have a full guide with the fix.
Run all 30 checks freeOne public URL, no account.
Delivery 6 checks
The page is not served over a secure (HTTPS) connection.
Some files on this secure page load over an insecure connection, so browsers block them or show a warning.
The page answers with an error instead of loading normally.
The page is slow to start loading.
The page is sent uncompressed, so it loads slower than it needs to.
Some images, scripts or style files on the page fail to load, so parts of the page may look broken.
Security headers 6 checks
Browsers are not told to always use the secure connection.
Nothing limits which scripts may run on the page, a standard defence against injected code.
Browsers may guess file types, which attackers can abuse.
Other sites can show this page inside a frame to trick visitors into clicks.
Full page addresses can leak to the other sites visitors go on to.
The server announces which software it runs.
Findability 8 checks
The page title is missing or too long for search results.
Search results have no proper summary of this page.
The page has no single, clear main heading.
Search engines are not clearly told which address is the real one for this page.
The page asks search engines to leave it out of their results.
Search engines get no structured details about the page or business.
The site’s instructions for search engine crawlers are missing or shut them out.
Search engines are given no list of the site's pages to crawl.
Sharing 4 checks
Links shared in chat apps and social media show no proper preview.
The picture meant for link previews does not load, so shared links show no image.
Links shared on X (Twitter) show no large preview card.
The browser tab shows no site icon.
Page basics 6 checks
The page is not set up to display properly on phones.
The page does not say which language it is in, which screen readers and translators rely on.
Some images have no text description for screen readers and search engines.
There is very little readable text on the page for visitors and search engines.
The page still shows template filler text, such as dummy Latin copy or a leftover to-do marker.
A form on the page sends what visitors type somewhere other than the live site.
Handing over a site builder project?
Each platform has its own leftovers at launch. These checklists pick the checks that matter most for it.
How the score is worked out
Every audit starts at 100. A check that warns or fails subtracts up to the points below; a pass subtracts nothing. The weights are fixed, so the same page gets the same score every time. A launch blocker caps the score at 49, so a page Google cannot index never looks nearly ready.
| Check | Max points |
|---|---|
| HTTPSBlocks launch | 12 |
| HTTP status | 10 |
| Search indexingBlocks launch | 10 |
| robots.txtBlocks launch | 10 |
| Title | 8 |
| Mobile viewport | 8 |
| CanonicalBlocks launch | 8 |
| Form destinationBlocks launch | 8 |
| Mixed content | 6 |
| Response time | 6 |
| HSTS | 6 |
| Meta description | 5 |
| H1 | 5 |
| Open Graph | 5 |
| Broken files | 5 |
| Placeholder text | 5 |
| Content-Security-Policy | 4 |
| Image alt | 4 |
| Share image loads | 3 |
| Structured data | 3 |
| X-Content-Type-Options | 3 |
| Clickjacking protection | 3 |
| Language | 2 |
| Twitter card | 2 |
| Referrer-Policy | 2 |
| Compression | 2 |
| Visible copy | 2 |
| Sitemap | 2 |
| Favicon | 1 |
| Server fingerprint | 1 |
Check these by hand
Skewcheck reads one page as an anonymous visitor sees it, plus the site's robots.txt. It never submits forms or logs in, so these stay on your list.
- Submit every form on the live domain and confirm the message arrives where the client expects it.
- After a rebuild or migration, make sure old URLs redirect (301 or 308) to their new addresses instead of returning 404. Migration Repair (/migration-repair) does this for you.
- Check analytics and any cookie banner on the live domain, not only on staging.
- Open a made-up URL and confirm the 404 page is useful and returns a 404 status.
- Check the other pages too. Skewcheck reads one URL per audit; a report key covers up to five pages of a site.
- Verify the domain in Google Search Console and submit the sitemap once the site is live.
- Hand over, or write down, who owns the domain, the hosting and the backups.