What I check before your site goes live

More than 70 automated checks, and what I still check by hand on launch day.

Summarize this article with

Author: Térence Mbu
Published: 30 October 2026
Reading time: 5 min
Format: Guide

Contents

A website can look perfect and still not work. The contact form throws messages away without a warning. Google lands on empty pages. An 8 MB photo slows the home page down on phones. None of this shows when you look at the site.

Every site I start is built on a template that runs more than 70 automated checks, on every change. Here is what they check, in plain words, and what I still check by hand on launch day.

1. Your visitors can reach you

The form actually sends messages. Until sending is set up, the site shows your email address instead: a form that would throw messages away cannot go live.
The form filters out bots without making you add a CAPTCHA, thanks to a hidden field and a minimum delay before sending.
On launch day, I send a real message and check that it lands in your inbox.

2. Google finds and understands every page

Every address in the site map (the sitemap file Google reads) responds correctly.
An address that does not exist shows "Page not found" with the right code (404). An empty page that answers "all good" looks like a thin duplicate to Google.
No internal link leads to a broken page.
Every page has its title, its official address (the canonical tag) and its preview image for shares.
Every page has exactly one main heading.
Your company's identity card, which Google reads in the page code (the structured data), is valid.
Every page is written in the language it declares.
The site map dates each page by its content, not by the day of the last deployment.

3. ChatGPT and Perplexity can cite you

The file that gives instructions to bots (robots.txt) allows the assistants that answer your customers' questions, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.
The same file turns away the bots that collect pages to train AI models. Your site stays citable without feeding the models. You can change this choice, either way.
The site publishes a summary that AI tools can read (the llms.txt file), with your company's name.

4. The site stays fast

Every image goes through the optimizer, with its size and its description. A photo of several megabytes added in the CMS is resized before it reaches the visitor.
Every file on the site stays under a weight limit set in advance.
The code loaded when a page opens is measured on every change.
Animations only load on the pages that need them.

5. Everyone can read and use the site

The contrast between text and background meets the common accessibility standard (level AA), for every color of the brand.
Animations stop for visitors who have turned them off on their phone or computer.
A menu or a window that opens keeps keyboard navigation inside it until it closes.

6. Your content shows up, and it breaks nothing

Every field you fill in the CMS actually shows on the site. No field sits there for nothing.
If a field is empty, the site shows its default text, never a broken page.
No placeholder text, such as "Lorem ipsum", stays online.

7. Security and privacy

No known critical vulnerability in the software the site is built on.
Every page sends the standard security protections to the browser (the security headers).
The cookie banner says exactly what the site does. No analytics runs until it has been decided with you.

8. The site is built twice before it is called done

The code passes an automated review, with zero errors.
The site is built twice in a row. The second build catches the errors the first one lets through, the ones that come from cached files.
The built site is started, then queried page by page, the way a visitor would.

What I check by hand on launch day

Some things cannot be measured with a script. They are checked at a set moment, against a written list.

How the site looks on phone, tablet and desktop, compared with the design.
Speed measured on mobile (Google's Lighthouse score), on the live version.
Full keyboard navigation, without a mouse.
The contrast of text placed over a photo, measured in the browser.
Your emails: the domain settings that make your emails arrive are still in place. I test them by sending and receiving a real message.
Is the copy true? No script can judge that. I review it with you.

What this changes for you

You get a site whose errors were found before you saw them. You know what was checked, and how. And when you edit a text or an image in the CMS, the same rules keep protecting the site.

GOT A PROJECT? LET'S TALK.

Website, web app or AI: we look at your project together, in 30 minutes. Free, no strings attached.