

Ask HN: Before you launch a site, what are final actions you take? - msomers

I'm putting together a new project that will document tasks we do as we wrap up development before we launch a site - things like final SEO optimization, optimizing HTML, JS, CSS, images, etc.<p>So what things do you do to your server, code, etc. to make sure it's prepped and ready to launch?
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kornnflake
Before launching I do:

* Minify Html, Css, Js using the YUI Compressor

* Compress images using tinypng.org

* Run the tests I wrote during development

* Do a final stress test using blitz.io

* Generate a XML Sitemap for search engines and edit the robots.txt

* Run a spellcheck using checkdog.com

* Setup monit to make sure my app restarts after a crash ;)

Guess that's it ;) Funny side story: I launched my weekend project
receiveee.com last week and failed big when moving to production. During
developing I ran the app under admin, but I ofc didn't when moving to
production. BUT, my app includes a smtp server which couldn't run on port 25
without admin rights. No error appeared, but not a single mail arrived. Even
took me 10 minutes to find the problem :D

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msomers
Thanks for the input! I've been debating the merits of minifying HTML, CSS,
and JS. I learned about all three of those extensively by exploring others'
code. Minifying breaks that. How do you address that issue?

~~~
jameswyse
Breaking the readability is the trade-off you have to make, though I think
it's worth it for production code, it really brings the file sizes down and if
you concatenate all your javascripts in to a single file you can really cut
down on requests too.

If you use Google chrome you can click the '{}' icon inside the developer
tools to 'pretty print' the javascript which helps a little!

There's also JavaScript Source Maps which you might want to look in to:
[http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/source...](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/sourcemaps/)

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JBMmagdaong
Creating a website for me expresses the hidden creativity in your mind. But
before producing a well defined website, you have to consider a lot of factors
first. To Begin with, a web designer must first consider how to have an
effective “optimization”, it’s the greatest command that you have to remember
in creating a website.

Next to optimization is get rid of Java script and CSS off to your page in
order to have a better and faster coding process which lead to easy managing
of your web content. Removing Java Script and CSS well produce greater space
that speeds up web progress. Like for example, if you have a 20 KB document,
eradicating the java script and CSS will convert this file from 20 KB to 15
KB, thus as I’ve said will then speed up processing.

Aside from removing Java and CSS, you should also remember to validate the
code of your web according to W3C standards. The purpose of this is to prevent
“accessibility issues” which is not good for search engines. Another step is
having a browsable navigation link by having an HTML navigational structure
that includes footer text, links, DHTML and etc. But remember that using a
Flash or Java Script is a big no because this will lead to coding blocks which
can be dangerous to your web content.

Another thing to consider is your URL constructions. Please refer to
Squahhot.com for more information about how Query Strings URL works.

With all this processing steps, let us be careful also with our web content.
You should not duplicate your web content, or just simply copy paste it from
other sources. Doing this will prioritize your ideas, and preventing
similarities of content from other sources (that’s if you just copy and paste
it).

With all this in mind, the last step in creating an effective website is to
launch it with “Proper Foundation”. Try to check if you have applied all the
necessary means such as XML sitemaps, RSS Feeds, stuff like that. A properly
founded website should have no issues with regards to loading a page, browser
compatibility, SEO elements, robots.txt validation and etc.

~~~
astrotech
does putting Java really makes a website run slow?coz I'm using it right now,
and so far Java is doing well. I can add varities of stuff in my website using
a java...

~~~
JBMmagdaong
yes Java can be good source when you want to customize your content,however,a
Java along with CSS can slow the optimization process, which is essential in
running a website

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sskates
Careful of spending too much time on this, it reeks of premature optimization.
You'll have much more knowledge of what's important to spend time on after you
launch the site than before.

~~~
msomers
Good point, and that might be something to point out. What types of issues
have you experienced in the past that you couldn't have blanket predicted
beforehand?

~~~
sskates
The main one is how customers are going to react to your product. Spending a
few hours on XML sitemaps and a build process for minification might seem like
a good idea if you are a perfectionist, but if you end up spending time on
these things it means less time for other features.

It's not so much about solving issues to make the perfect product up front,
but more about making progress quickly. Number of iterations is one of the
best predictors of product quality, and by spending time on things other than
getting out the next iteration, you're slowing down your rate of iteration. It
might be tempting to think of a website as "done", but a launch is just the
beginning.

For example, the biggest issue with our product at launch
(<http://sonalight.com>, a mobile app that allows you to text through voice)
was the pricing structure. We realized it was better to give the product away
for free instead of limiting usage. We would never have realized this if we
hadn't launched and heard complaints from our customer base.

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kevinconroy
If you mean before initial launch of your site, do load testing. Nothing worse
than crashing on day 0.

