Checklist for when a Joomla! website goes live:
- Unpublish or uninstalled all unused extensions?
- Joomla and all extensions are up-to-date?
- Uninstalled all unused templates?
- ACL Manager installed and configured?
- Default Captcha set?
- ReCaptcha private/public keys?
- Error reporting disabled?
- General email address setup?
- Server timezone set correctly?
- Mail Settings setup and SMTP server setup?
- Session settings setup?
- Template "Preview Module Positions" disabled?
- Removed all unused Users from User Manager?
- Removed all unused User Groups?
- Allow User Registration: no (if necessary)?
- Password complexity setup?
- Removed all unused content?
- Removed all unused files and images, like default Joomla images?
- All Lorem Ipsum / dummy content is removed?
- Removed all deleted content (empty trash articles, categories, menu items, modules)?
- Replaced development URLs in the database with production URLs?
- Robots.txt setup?
- Favicon installed (generate/test)?
- Mobile icons installed (generate/test)?
- URL redirects from old site to new site setup?
- Added a 404 page?
- Optimized images?
- Unpublished unused search plugins, also the smart search plugin?
- Are the search plugins in the correct order?
- Clear smart search indexes and rebuild them (if smart search is used)?
- All webforms have email handling and emailadresses setup correctly?
- Cleaned form submissions?
- Cleaned all test newsletters?
- Redirect non-www to www setup in .htaccess or webserver hostfile?
- Admin Tools Pro / jHackGuard installed and configured?
- Admin Tools Pro Never block these IPs [your own IP-address]
- Block access to /administrator with admin secret URL parameter or use IP whitelist for /administrator
- optimized profile added/configured?
- Joomla! - editors-xtd plugins unpublished?
- Sitemap created for all menus?
- Add line to .htaccess to show XMAP sitemap as sitemap.xml? ([example] (https://gist.github.com/hans2103/aec679d235ff76e33822)) Carefull: use a different solution for multilingual sites.
- XML Sitemap added to Google Webmaster Tools?
- Certificate setup (if necessary)?
- Activated HTTPS (if necessary)?
- Admin Tools Pro: Convert all links to HTTPS when site is accessed over SSL (if necessary)
- SEF URLs / sh404SEF installed and configured?
- URL and Meta Tag Manager installed and configured?
- Mootools enabler/disabler active? (Mootools Enabler/Disabler)
- Caching setup?
- Cleared cache/tmp folders?
- JCH Optimize pro / Scriptmerge / jBetolo installed and configured
- CDN activated?
- Cookie Law / Cookie alert
- Social Share / AddThis installed and configured?
- Google Analytics setup?
- Watchful.li setup? (Watchful.li)
- myJoomla audit done? ({manage}.myJoomla.com)
- Is there a backup scheme?
- Backup AND restore tested?
- (S)FTP login created for support?
- Trainingwebsite archived and removed?
- Website checked outside your own network/dns?
- Speed checked of the website? (YSLOW), (PageSpeed Insights), (webpagetest)