What to switch off before going live

The new site is finished. The redirects are in place, the content is transferred, everything is checked. All that is left is to switch over.

This is exactly where every technical guide stops. And exactly here lie a handful of things that have nothing to do with the website but cost money if they are skipped.

That is why they regularly get skipped. Not out of carelessness — but because they fit none of the categories a rebuild is usually thought in.

During the switch-over the site is briefly gone

That is the starting point for everything that follows.

How long depends on what is being switched. If everything stays with the same provider, it is minutes. If the server or the domain changes as well, it can be hours until the change has arrived everywhere.

During that time the site is either unreachable or delivers an unfinished state. That is normal and not a problem — as long as nobody is sent there during that time.

Pause ads, do not end them

If you run ads, you pay for clicks. During the switch-over these clicks land in nothing.

So switch them off. But: pause, do not end.

The difference is not cosmetic. Ad systems learn over time which ad works with which people. What was learned is tied to the running campaign. Whoever ends it and creates it again afterwards starts from zero — the campaign has to build up its experience again, and in that phase you pay more for worse results.

Pausing keeps what was learned. It is the same click and a completely different result.

Stop automatic emails

Newsletters, reminders, welcome sequences — anything that goes out on a schedule.

If an email goes out during the switch-over, the recipients click a link that leads nowhere. The damage is not the one lost visit. The damage is that some of these people unsubscribe, because they get the impression that something is not working here.

An unsubscribe is permanent. A missed send is not.

The client's go-ahead

Sounds like a formality and is not.

Whoever did not build the website themselves often does not know that something happens on the day of the switch-over. And they may have things to take care of that the person rebuilding knows nothing about — a campaign starting that day, an appointment where they want to show the site to someone, a trade fair.

So: agree on a date instead of announcing one. And mention that the site will briefly be unreachable.

The point almost nobody thinks of: the client's emails

This is the most expensive point on the list, and it has nothing to do with the website.

If not only the website moves but the domain also goes to another provider, then the email mailboxes move along. They hang on the same domain.

For the client that means: the mail program on their computer, their phone, the tablet in the meeting room, a colleague's program — from the moment of the switch all of them access a server that is no longer responsible.

Nobody notices at once, because a mail program keeps running for a while and shows the last messages it loaded. It only shows when nothing new comes in all morning — and at that moment the question is in the room whether mail was lost through the rebuild.

That has to be discussed beforehand, not explained afterwards. Who will be affected, who sets up the devices again, and when.

If the move happens without a change of provider, this point disappears completely. All the more important to clarify beforehand which of the two cases applies — the answer is not visible from outside.

And afterwards: switch back on

The part that tends to fall off checklists, because the list ends with the switch-over.

Reactivate the ads. Release the mail sequences again. And before each, check briefly whether the targets are still right — an ad pointing to an address that no longer exists after the rebuild is worse than a paused one.

Because these addresses run through your redirects. That works, but costs an extra hop on every paid click. Correcting the targets directly is a quarter of an hour's work and the cleaner state.

The list for the day

Agreed beforehand: Date with the client, downtime announced, clarified whether mailboxes are affected, clarified who sets them up again.

Switched off shortly before: Ads paused. Automatic emails stopped. If possible: a date chosen when little is going on — not Monday morning.

Back on afterwards: Ads reactivated, targets checked. Mail sequences released, links checked. And asked the client whether mail is arriving again.

Why this is here

This article contains nothing technical. There is no response code, no file, no setting.

Still, it is the part of a rebuild where real money is most likely left on the table — burned ad budget, lost recipients, half a day without an inbox for someone who knew nothing about it.

It is not a question of skill. It is a question of whether somebody thought of it.

Sources

• Udemy, Der perfekte Webseiten-Relaunch, phase 4, go-live checklist — that ads are paused at the time of the switch-over and explicitly not ended or deleted, because ending resets the system's optimisation, and that during the switch-over there is a short downtime in which you do not want to pay for clicks that lead nowhere; that automated email sequences are stopped for this time so that recipients do not land on an unreachable page and then unsubscribe; that the client's go-ahead for switching over has to be obtained and the client should be told about the downtime; and that the client may afterwards have to adjust their email setup, because with a move involving a change of provider the mailboxes are affected too.
• Own practice — the reasoning for why ending the campaign is more expensive than a pause; the observation that a mail server that can no longer be reached goes unnoticed at first, because the mail program keeps showing the messages it last loaded; the advice to clarify beforehand whether a change of provider happens at all; choosing a quiet time; and checking the ad targets when switching back on, so that paid clicks do not run through a redirect.