Website acceptance checklist: what to verify before approval and collect at handover
Website acceptance should confirm the agreed tasks work and your team can operate the result. A polished homepage image does not verify enquiry delivery, domain access or recovery. Agree these checks when defining the project scope.
Compare delivery with the agreed scope
Put the page list, languages and integrations beside the deployed website. Mark each complete, open or deliberately deferred. For an open item, record URL, expected behavior, actual behavior and owner. Separate a defect from a new request outside the approved scope.
Test important tasks on mobile: find a service, understand its price basis, contact the business and receive a response. Stores need a separate plan for ordering and the agreed payment and shipping workflows.
Ask for demonstrated outcomes
Ask for a demonstration on the public website, not only in development. Check content, navigation, enquiry delivery and agreed measurement. For a redesign, include important old URLs in the test.
- Agreed pages and language versions are present.
- Navigation, internal links and important redirects work.
- An enquiry is stored, assigned and notified correctly.
- Titles, descriptions, canonicals and sitemap are checked.
- Your team demonstrates editing a piece of content.
- Backup and recovery are demonstrated within the agreed scope.
Transfer ownership and responsibilities
Inventory the registrar, hosting, repository, content system, search tools and integrations. For each, document account owner, responsible team member, billing and recovery route. Do not circulate an open document containing passwords; use an appropriate secure access process.
A handover becomes usable when an authorized member of your team has tested their own access. Agree which supplier access must remain and why. Changes to access should follow an agreed process.
Define support after launch
Document defect correction, new features and ongoing maintenance separately. Ask for the reporting channel, owner, response time, charges and approval process for extra work. Give each open defect a review date rather than leaving it under a general support promise.
Keep the page inventory, acceptance log, account responsibilities and short editing guide with the project. These make it easier to commission future changes without explaining the whole website again.
Frequently asked questions
- Does a small website need an acceptance log?
- A short checklist is often sufficient. What matters is verifiable criteria, named owners and documented open items.
- Which accounts should belong to me?
- Agree domain, hosting, code, content system and integration ownership before commissioning. Record access and recovery for each system.
Send the page list, integrations and handover requirements. We can discuss a verifiable scope for your build or redesign.
Discuss your website project