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Dale
Dale

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

#aem #adobe #contentstrategy #webdev

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.

Want the full checklist as a playbook? This article is Chapter 6 of Adobe Experience Manager Simplified — my 38-page guide to running content operations in AEM: lifecycles, governance, metadata, DAM workflows, Jira intake, launch runbooks, plus 8 copy-paste templates. $39: https://davidverse176.gumroad.com/l/saaok

What's the worst thing that ever slipped past your QA? I read every comment.

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