WordPress Pre-Launch Diagnostics Checklist

Symptoms

• Design review is complete, but no one has verified forms, emails, backups, redirects, sitemap, robots, login, REST, cron, or cache behavior.
• Launch depends on staging, migration, DNS, CDN, SEO, or plugin settings that were changed late.
• The owner needs a dated go/no-go checklist rather than informal approval.

Most Common Causes

• Launch reviews often focus on visible pages and miss background workflows.
• Staging safeguards such as noindex, password protection, test payment keys, or disabled emails can accidentally remain on production.
• Operational failures become launch incidents when ownership and rollback are not documented.

How To Confirm The Cause

• Test homepage, priority pages, forms, email, login, media, REST, cron, sitemap, robots, canonical host, redirects, cache, security headers, and backup readiness.
• Check staging-to-production cleanup: noindex, robots blocks, password protection, analytics, payment mode, email mode, and old domains.
• Record owner approval, launch timestamp, rollback point, and known exceptions.

Fixes

• Resolve launch blockers before public traffic, especially broken forms, email failure, noindex, bad redirects, checkout issues, and missing rollback.
• Move lower-risk recommendations into a dated post-launch backlog with owner and due date.
• Keep one launch report that support can use if issues appear after DNS or CDN changes.

How To Verify The Fix

• Repeat the checklist on the final production host after DNS/CDN/cache changes.
• Confirm public sitemap and robots signals match the intended search visibility.
• Verify backup or rollback access before declaring launch complete.

When To Contact Support

Escalate when launch touches payments, customer data, DNS, production search visibility, legal pages, email deliverability, or destructive migration steps.