Access first, design later
The most expensive problem after handover is not sloppy layout - it is a domain registered in the agency's name. Before the sign-off document is signed, credentials are handed over willingly. After it, you are chasing replies for a month.
Do not check a list of logins in an email - check the actual login: from your own computer, in a private window. If you could not get in somewhere, that is a handover defect, not a detail.
- Domain: you logged into the registrar account yourself, and the owner details show your name or your company.
- Hosting or server: the account is tied to your email, not the developer's.
- Site admin panel: you have the administrator role, not editor - you can create users.
- Code: access to the repository, or a delivered archive of the project. "The site works" is not enough.
- Analytics and search console: your account is the owner, the agency is added as a guest.
- Email on your domain and every third-party service connected to the site: payments, newsletters, CRM.
The handover checklist: what to click through by hand
Open the site on a desktop and walk through it as a visitor, not as the client who already knows where everything is. Click everything: menu items, the logo, footer links, buttons inside cards, gallery images.
Check the page that does not exist, too: add any nonsense to the URL, something like /qwerty. You should get a clear 404 page with the menu and a link home, not a white screen or a server error.
- The padlock in the address bar on every page, including inner ones. An insecure connection warning is a defect.
- The browser tab shows a meaningful title, not "Home" or "React App". The favicon is in place.
- No Lorem ipsum left anywhere, no "copy to follow", no placeholders in the contact details.
- Every link goes where it promises. Broken footer links are a classic.
- The site is live on the right address: no /test, no dev. subdomain, and the old address redirects to the new one.
Mobile and speed - from your own phone
Look at the site on a real phone and on mobile data, not on Wi-Fi next to the router. That is how most of your visitors will see it.
The clearest sign of broken layout is horizontal scrolling. If you can drag the page left and right, some block is spilling past the screen. Check that the hamburger menu opens and closes, that buttons are easy to hit with a thumb, and that pop-ups can be closed.
Speed is free to check: put the address into PageSpeed Insights and look at the mobile tab. A score below 50 is a reason to ask questions. Then open the report and find the lines about image sizes: if an image in the first screen weighs several megabytes, nobody optimised anything. That is a day's work at most and it belongs in the project, not in a separate quote.
Contact forms - where money leaks quietly
A broken form gives away nothing. The site works, visitors arrive, no enquiries come in, and nobody understands why. You cannot check this by looking - you check it by submitting.
Fill the form with your real details and send it. Then check your inbox, spam folder included. Next, break the form on purpose: submit it empty, type "abc" into the email field and letters into the phone field. The site should calmly explain what is wrong, not sit there doing nothing and not send an empty enquiry.
- After submitting, the visitor sees a clear confirmation instead of being left on the same page guessing.
- Enquiries land in at least two places: email plus Telegram or a spreadsheet, for example. A single inbox is a single point of failure.
- A double click on the button does not create two enquiries.
- There is a data consent checkbox and a working link to the privacy policy - with the box unchecked by default.
- If files can be attached, they actually reach the recipient.
SEO basics and analytics
You do not need to understand search marketing here, just confirm the site is not blocked from search. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt. A line reading "Disallow: /" means the whole site is closed to indexing - a classic setting forgotten after moving from a staging address. While you are there, check that /sitemap.xml opens.
Walk through a few pages and look at the tab titles: every page should have its own title, not the same one across the site. If there was an old site, ask for the list of redirects from old URLs to new ones and check a couple by hand - otherwise the rankings you built up reset to zero.
Check analytics in the real-time report: open the site on your phone and confirm the visit shows up. Separately, confirm a goal is set up for form submissions. Without it, in six months you will not be able to say whether your advertising works.
When not to nitpick
Keep two things apart. A defect is when something was built differently from what you agreed. A change request is when you agreed on it and now want it another way. The second is fine too, but it is a new task and new money, not a reason to hold up payment.
Do not demand 100 in PageSpeed or pixel-perfect matching to the mockup at every screen size: a site with external scripts and analytics physically cannot hit a hundred, and layouts stretch across different resolutions. Judge by whether the site opens fast and nothing falls apart, not by the numbers.
Put your notes in one document: page URL, what is wrong, screenshot, device and browser. Forty messages in a chat over three days is not a defect list - there is no way to see the scope in it. At the same time, get it in writing: the deadline for fixes, the warranty period for defects, and what exactly support covers after handover.
Handover is not a sign of distrust, it is a normal part of the job. Check your access, click through the site on your phone, submit an enquiry and confirm it arrived, look at robots.txt and analytics. Defects go in one document, wishes go in a separate list. If you would rather need these checks less often, at EFIMOV DEV we show work in stages and hand over credentials along with the project: sites, stores, Telegram bots and automation on React and Node.js. Starting price ranges for each service are published on our site, and the exact quote comes after a brief.
Frequently asked
How long does handover take?
Two or three hours is enough to run the checklist on a landing page or a corporate site. For an online store, budget a day: you need to check the cart, shipping and a test payment end to end separately, order confirmation email included.
Can I pay only after every note is fixed?
It is more sensible to split it: the final payment on sign-off once defects are closed, with anything beyond the contract handled as separate tasks. Otherwise handover never ends - new ideas appear faster than fixes.
What if the agency will not hand over the domain and the code?
Do not sign off and do not pay the balance. Handing over access is part of the job, not a favour. Write it into the contract up front: the domain is registered in your name, and credentials are transferred before the final payment.
Should I bring in another developer to review the work?
For a standard site, no - everything in this checklist can be checked without touching code. An independent technical audit makes sense when you are dealing with a complex service with user accounts, payments and integrations, and you plan to keep developing the project.