What to check before a church website goes live
Eighteen checks separate a church website launch that goes quietly from one that causes weeks of problems. Two of them are hard to repair afterwards: missing redirects from the old site, and a domain registered in a volunteer's name rather than the church's.
What has to be right before anything else?
Two things, because both are painful to repair later. First, every address on the old site must redirect to its equivalent on the new one. Rankings attach to addresses, and an address returning an error loses everything it accumulated.
Second, the domain must be registered in the church's name with a church email address. Domains held by individual volunteers are lost when those people move away, and recovery goes through the registrar and takes 5 to 10 working days if it works at all.
What should be checked on content?
Service time and address correct and visible without scrolling. Every staff member listed still there. No placeholder text anywhere, including in image captions and page titles.
Check the footer specifically. Copyright years, old addresses and phone numbers survive redesigns more often than any other element, because nobody reads the footer while reviewing.
What technical checks matter?
HTTPS working with no mixed-content warnings. A real 404 page that returns status 404 rather than redirecting to the homepage. Sitemap reachable and containing only final addresses, not ones that redirect.
Confirm the site is not still blocked from indexing. A noindex left over from the staging version is the single most common launch failure and can go unnoticed for weeks.
How should the site be tested on phones?
On a real phone, on mobile data rather than church wifi. Time how long until something appears; over about 2.5 seconds loses visitors.
Then do the three things a visitor does: find the service time, find the address, tap the phone number. Anything requiring a zoom is a failure, and tap targets under about 44 by 44 pixels are unreliable with a thumb.
What has to be tested with real data?
Send a message through the contact form and confirm it arrives, from an address that is not the webmaster's. Forms that silently fail are common and nobody reports them.
If there is online giving, make a real gift of a small amount from a phone and confirm the money reaches the bank account. Test-mode transactions do not prove the payout path works.
What should be watched after launch?
Google Search Console for 4 weeks. Watch for crawl errors on old addresses, which means a redirect was missed, and for pages excluded from indexing.
A ranking dip of 2 to 4 weeks while pages are recrawled is normal. A drop that persists past that points at redirects rather than settling, and it is repairable if caught early.
| Area | Checks | Hardest to fix later |
|---|---|---|
| Addresses and domain | Redirects mapped and tested, domain in church name, HTTPS forced | Both |
| Content | Service time, address, staff current, no placeholder text, footer correct | None |
| Technical | No leftover noindex, real 404, sitemap with final addresses, robots.txt correct | noindex |
| Mobile | Loads under 2.5s, no zooming needed, tap targets adequate, phone number tappable | Fixed-width layout |
| Live data | Contact form delivers, giving reaches the bank, email accounts working | Email accounts |
Work in this area
Frequently asked questions
How long should we test before launching?
A few days with two or three people who did not build the site. Fresh eyes find placeholder text and broken links that the builder reads past.
Can we launch without redirects and add them later?
You can, and the loss grows the longer they are missing. Adding them within a few weeks usually recovers most of it; after months, less.
Should we announce the new site?
To the congregation, yes, with a note that anything broken should be reported. Members find problems faster than any checklist.
What if we find a problem after launch?
Most are quick to fix. The two exceptions are missing redirects and a lost domain, which is why both sit at the top of the list.
Do we need to resubmit our sitemap?
Yes, through Google Search Console. It speeds up discovery and, more usefully, tells you exactly why any page is excluded.
Talk it through first
A short call costs nothing and usually clarifies whether this is the right next step for your organisation.
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