How to accept site development work from a contractor?

The contractor announced the completion of the site. What do you need to do and how to properly accept the work? What points should be paid attention to and what should not be missed in any case? What accesses should be given to you, and why is this important?

If you do not get full access to the site, there may be a situation in which you become a “hostage” of your contractor. When accepting work, be sure to pay attention to the compliance of the resource with modern standards and the requirements of search engines.

Be sure to check that the domain name (site address) belongs to you (the domain owner can be both an individual and a legal entity). Domain name registration can be carried out by any official service, including a hosting provider.

Pay attention to the reliability of the hosting provider. Hosting is the place where your site will be physically located. It can be anywhere, anywhere in the world. The main thing is reliability, security and high speed of loading a site from a hosting. Check if the English-speaking support, and how quickly it responds.

When accepting a site from a contractor, be sure to check the following points:

• You can quickly enter the administration section and without any problems add or edit existing pages of the site
• You got full access to the admin panel (you know the address, login and password for authorization)
• You got access to the account on the hosting provider resource
• The site has a correctly configured robots.txt file (this is necessary for the site to be correctly indexed by search engines)
• The contractor created a sitemap.xml sitemap (this file is also necessary for search engines to correctly index the site structure by robots)
• The site has implemented tools for SEO page optimization (there are fields for entering title, description, headers, etc.)
• Implemented adaptive layout when the site pages correctly open on the screen of any size (desktop computer, laptop, tablet and smartphone)
• Website pages open correctly using any popular browser (cross-browser layout implemented)

• After the contractor transfers the site to you, it must remain on the hosting to which you have access and on the necessary domain
• The site should have your contact details, and all letters sent to the site should be sent to your inbox
• The site gives the correct response codes for non-existent (404) and working (200) pages.

When accepting the site, also check that the mirrors are configured correctly. The resource should be displayed equally when typing the address with www and without www. Also, the correct display of the site should be through http and https (when implementing the corresponding security certificate) in the address bar. Letters that users send from the pages of the site should be sent to your mail. You must have access to all contacts and communication systems of your site (including the management of an answering machine and pop-ups).

Taking the job of creating the site, do not rush. Do everything in stages and systematically. First check to see if everything corresponds to each item in the ToR. Make sure that the site has the design and structure agreed upon and spelled out in the assignment. Check layout and content filling (if provided by contract). Fix each stage and each item with a signed acceptance certificate with comments and suggestions for revision.

Do not accept the work until you yourself can not carry out basic manipulations with the site. It’s best to record the video instruction for use in the admin panel.