A website handover is complete when the people responsible for the site can operate it, recover it and reach the right support contact. A folder of design files and a working homepage do not answer who renews the domain or what happens if a form stops delivering enquiries.
Use the following checklist before launch or when changing development partners. Record the responsible person, evidence and unresolved action for each item.
Confirm ownership and access
List the domain registrar, hosting, content management system, source repository, analytics and connected services. Confirm which organization owns each account, who manages billing and which people need access. Invite named users with suitable roles instead of circulating one shared administrator password.
Check renewal dates and the recovery contact for important accounts. A former contractor’s personal inbox should not be the only route to renew or recover a business-critical service.
Make the delivered system understandable
- Where the source files, assets and approved content are stored.
- How the test and live environments differ.
- How configuration and secrets are managed without placing them in ordinary documentation.
- Which plugins, services, fonts or other dependencies require licenses or renewal.
- How to publish a change, confirm success and restore a previous version.
For a multilingual site, identify who owns each language version and how a change to a service page reaches the other versions. Include redirects and important enquiry routes in the handover notes.
Verify that backups can be restored
Agree what is backed up, where copies are held, how long they are retained and who can restore them. A notification saying a backup ran successfully is different from a successful recovery test.
Restore a representative backup into an isolated environment and check content, uploaded files and essential configuration. Prevent the restored copy from sending live enquiries or other external notifications during the exercise. Record how long the exercise took and any missing steps; do not turn that observation into a guaranteed recovery time.
Assign routine checks and incident responsibilities
Specify who checks updates, expiry notices, broken enquiry routes and service availability. Define how an incident is reported, who investigates it and when another party needs to be involved. Clarify support hours and response targets in the actual agreement; do not assume that maintenance automatically includes round-the-clock service.
Separate a fault in an existing feature from a request for a new one. Also state who approves changes that affect cost or operating behaviour.
Run a handover rehearsal
Ask the receiving operator to make a small change in the test environment using the documentation. Then have them find the latest backup, identify the release procedure and locate the incident contact. Questions raised during this exercise reveal gaps that a file-delivery checklist can miss.
Close the handover with an owner and target date for every remaining item. Keep the document current after major changes so the next operator does not inherit outdated instructions.
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