The Pre-Publish QA Checklist I Wish I'd Had on Day One in AEM

Every item on this list exists because something broke in production.

I spent four years running content operations on a large AEM site. In that time, I watched a page go live with the staging cache still warm, a promo banner with last quarter's pricing, and a checkout link pointing at the author environment. Each one had the same root cause: someone eyeballed the page in author preview and hit publish.

Author lies. Publish tells the truth.

So I built a checklist. Not a theoretical one — a "this exact thing burned us" one. I ran it before every publish, and the production incidents dropped off a cliff. Here it is.

1. Content correctness

• All copy matches the approved source document. No placeholder text, no lorem ipsum, no "TK."
• Product names, prices, and specs match the source of truth.
• Dates, times, and time zones are correct and clearly labeled.
• Legal disclaimers and footnotes are present where required.
• Critical: any pricing, offer terms, or claims have written stakeholder approval on file.

2. SEO and meta

• Page title set, unique, under 60 characters. Meta description under 160.
• Canonical URL correct — especially for campaign or duplicated pages.
• Open Graph tags present for anything that will be shared.
• One H1 per page, headings in order, no skipped levels.
• Staging and test pages must NOT be indexable. Launch pages must be.

3. Links

• Every link clicked and verified — internal and external.
• No links to author-environment URLs. If you see /editor.html in a href, stop.
• Critical: checkout, cart, and conversion-path links tested end to end.

4. Images and media

• Every image loads at every breakpoint. No broken image icons.
• Alt text on every meaningful image; decorative images marked decorative.
• File sizes sane: heroes under ~300 KB, gallery images under ~200 KB. Check the actual rendition, not the original.
• Correct rendition for each placement — no full-size originals in thumbnail slots.

5. Responsive and cross-browser

• Check at mobile (~375px), tablet (~768px), and desktop (~1440px).
• No horizontal scrolling. Text doesn't overlap anything.
• Checked in your two most-used browsers (usually Chrome and Safari).

6. Accessibility basics

• Color contrast meets WCAG AA for body text (4.5:1).
• Form fields have visible labels, not placeholder-only text.
• Page is keyboard-navigable: logical tab order, visible focus, no traps.
• Videos have captions; audio has a transcript link.

7. Personalization and targeting

• Targeting rules reviewed: which audiences see this, and is the logic right?
• Default (untargeted) experience verified.
• No audience sees content meant for a different audience. The classic: employees seeing the "new customer" offer.

8. Publishing mechanics

• Content activated to the right publish environment — not just sitting in author.
• Scheduled publishes have the correct date, time, AND time zone.
• Dispatcher cache flushed for the changed pages — then verified by loading the page in a fresh session.
• Critical: check on the live URL, not the author preview.

9. Analytics and tracking

• Page views registering. Conversion events firing — test each one.
• Campaign tracking parameters correct on promo links.
• No duplicate page-view tags after template changes.

How to run this without it taking all day

For a major launch, run the full list — budget half a day. For routine updates, run the starred critical-path items plus whatever sections the change touches. A copy change needs sections 1–3. An image swap needs 4–5.

The rule: the checklist scales with the blast radius of the change. A homepage hero gets the full pass. A typo fix gets content correctness and a live-URL check.

And keep a QA log — ticket number, date, who ran QA, pass/fail, issues found. When something breaks in production despite QA, the log tells you whether the checklist failed or the checklist was skipped. Those are very different problems.

---

This is Chapter 6 of "Adobe Experience Manager Simplified," my plain-language guide to running content operations in AEM — lifecycles, governance, metadata, DAM workflows, Jira intake, launch runbooks, plus 8 copy-paste templates. 38 pages, $39: https://davidverse176.gumroad.com/l/saaok