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Pre-launch website proofreading checklist

Before a site goes live, the copy gets one last read — or it should. This checklist covers the six kinds of writing error that survive a casual proofread, scoped to what a proofreading pass actually catches, with the non-copy checks (links, SEO, accessibility) flagged to run separately.

Last reviewed: 2026-06-21

A pre-launch website proofreading checklist should cover six kinds of copy error on every page: spelling and typos, grammar, punctuation and spacing, clarity, style and consistency, and leftover placeholder or template copy. Check the whole published site, not just the home page — the errors that embarrass you are on the pages you stopped re-reading.

Proofreading is the copy pass only. Broken links, SEO metadata, page speed, and accessibility matter at launch too, but they are separate checks — keep them off the proofreading list so neither pass gives a false sense of done. Verant runs the copy pass automatically across a whole site and verifies each correction with a second AI agent before showing it.

Proofread the whole site, not the home page

The home page gets read a hundred times before launch. The pages that ship with errors are the ones that got built once and never revisited: the deep service page, the older blog post, the templated location or product page cloned from a starter. A pre-launch pass has to cover all of them, which is why a crawl beats a click-through — it checks every public page the same way instead of relying on you to remember each one.

Run the pass on the staging or production build, not on a draft in a document. The text being checked is whatever the CMS, theme, and plugins actually rendered to the page — which can differ from what you typed in the editor.

The copy checklist — the six kinds

Copy errors to proofread

These are the six kinds a proofreading pass catches. Run each across every page, not just the home page.

Spelling and typos. Misspellings, transposed letters, and doubled or dropped words — on every page, including the long-tail ones you stopped re-reading.
Grammar. Subject-verb agreement, tense, and sentence-structure errors in the visible copy after the page renders.
Punctuation and spacing. Missing, doubled, or misused punctuation; stray double spaces; inconsistent quotes, hyphens, and dashes.
Clarity. Sentences that are hard to read or ambiguous to a first-time visitor who lacks your context.
Style and consistency. Awkward or clumsy phrasing, and copy that reads inconsistently from one page to the next.
Placeholder and template copy. Leftover lorem ipsum, "your text here", "Hello world!", sample product descriptions, and untouched theme defaults that shipped by accident.

Also check separately (not part of the copy pass)

These matter at launch too, but a proofreading pass does not cover them — run them with the right tool so neither check gives a false sense of done.

Broken links and redirects. Use a link checker — proofreading reads copy, it does not validate URLs.
SEO metadata. Title tags, meta descriptions, and Open Graph data are an SEO check, not a copy check (though the words inside them are still worth proofreading).
Accessibility. WCAG conformance, contrast, and screen-reader behavior need an accessibility audit.
Facts and figures. Prices, dates, names, and claims need a human fact-check — proofreading checks how copy reads, not whether it is true.

How to run the copy pass before launch

1
Build the full list of pages going live — including templated and auto-generated ones, where placeholder and copy errors hide.
2
Run the six-kind copy pass across every page: paste your URL into Verant and run a full-site scan so each public page is proofread the same way.
3
Review the flagged corrections in context. Verant quotes your exact text on every flag and verifies each fix with a second AI agent, so you sort genuine issues, not a wall of false positives.
4
Apply the fixes in your CMS, then run the non-copy checks — links, SEO metadata, accessibility, and facts — with their own tools.
5
Re-scan after editing to confirm the copy is clean, then ship.

How verification works

Most proofreading agents show you every suggestion and make you sort the good from the bad. Verant runs an adversarial second pass — Claude Sonnet proofreads, then GPT-5 tries to break each correction. What survives is what we show you. Verbatim is sacred: every flag quotes your exact text; we never auto-apply fixes.

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Frequently asked questions

What should a pre-launch proofreading checklist include?

The six kinds of copy error a proofreading pass catches: spelling and typos, grammar, punctuation and spacing, clarity, style and consistency, and leftover placeholder or template copy. Run each across every page, not just the home page.

Is proofreading the same as a full pre-launch QA?

No. Proofreading is the copy pass. A full pre-launch QA also covers broken links, SEO metadata, page speed, and accessibility — those are separate checks with their own tools. Keep them off the proofreading list so neither pass gives a false sense of done.

Should I proofread every page or just the important ones?

Every public page. The errors that embarrass you at launch are on the pages you stopped re-reading — deep service pages, older posts, and templated pages cloned from a starter. A full-site crawl checks all of them the same way.

How does Verant fit into a pre-launch pass?

It runs the copy pass automatically: crawl the published site, proofread every page for the six kinds, and verify each correction with a second AI agent before showing it — so you review genuine issues with your exact text quoted, not a wall of false positives.

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