Rollout

Move the site to the destination server

Move the site to the destination server where it will be accessible to your users. If availability is important for your site, you will want to make this move during a low usage time such as the middle of the night. If the files will take some time to copy, you may want to take the servers off the network temporarily so that the site is not corrupted with a combination of old and new files.

Warn the people who frequently use the site if your server is going to be down for any reason. You may want to send these frequent users email. Another way to inform users is for all links to go to a page that says the server will be down until such and such a time.

Test the site on the destination server

If publishing your site means moving it onto a different server than the one it was developed on, you should conduct quality assurance and performance testing on the new server. The new server may introduce new behaviors. Make certain that the links work and that the scripts for forms work in the way that you planned.

Make a backup

Files can become corrupted for any number of reasons (e.g. hard drive crashes, actions by the server administrator, malevolent hackers, etc.). Make a backup so that if necessary you can restore your files to the server.