How to Review a Website Before Accepting Delivery

Before you release the final payment, learning how to review a website before accepting delivery protects you from a site that looks finished but quietly breaks the moment a real customer touches it. The short version: open the site on your own phone (not just the developer's screen), click every link and button, submit every form, test it on slow internet, confirm it works in Arabic if it's bilingual, and make sure the domain, code, and passwords are in your name. Only sign off once all of that passes. This is your website QA checklist as the client — no technical background needed, just a methodical hour of clicking before you pay.

Test it on your own phone first, not the demo

The number one mistake is judging a website from the developer's laptop, where everything is fast, cached, and running on his home wifi. That is not your customer's reality.

Ask for the live link and open it yourself on:

• Your own phone (iPhone and an Android if you can — they render differently)
• Mobile data, not wifi, so you feel the real loading speed most Lebanese visitors get
• A regular laptop or desktop to check the wider layout

In Lebanon most people reach you through their phone, so if the mobile version is cramped, buttons overlap, or text spills off the screen, you have not received a finished site. Tap around like an impatient customer would: does the menu open? Can you read the prices without zooming? Does the WhatsApp button actually open WhatsApp with your number? A site that only looks good on the developer's screen is a site that is not done.

Click everything: links, buttons, and navigation

Go through the site page by page and treat every clickable thing as guilty until proven working. This is the most tedious part and the most important.

1. Every menu item — does it go to the right page, or a dead end?
2. Every button — "Contact us", "Order now", "Book" — does it do what it says?
3. Every link — internal links between pages, and external links to your Instagram, Google Maps, or WhatsApp.
4. The logo — clicking it should bring you back to the home page.
5. The phone and email — tapping the number on mobile should start a call; tapping the email should open the mail app.

Write down anything broken in a simple list and send it back before you pay. A common trap is the "coming soon" or placeholder page the developer forgot to fill — Lorem ipsum text, a fake address, a stock photo that was meant to be replaced. If you want the full picture of what a proper handover includes, our checklist for hiring a web developer covers what to agree on from day one so fewer things slip through at the end.

Test every form as if you were a customer

Forms are where sites break silently, because they look fine but the message never arrives. Do not assume — send a real test.

• Fill in the contact form with your own name and submit it. Then check: did it actually land somewhere? In an inbox, a WhatsApp, a dashboard?
• If there's a booking or order form, complete a full test order and confirm you (or the business) received it.
• Try submitting with empty fields or a wrong email — does it show a clear error, or does it just fail silently?
• Check the thank-you message — after submitting, does the customer see confirmation, or are they left wondering if it worked?

This matters enormously in Lebanon, where a missed contact form means a lost customer who will never call twice. Ask the developer exactly where form submissions go and see one arrive with your own eyes before you accept delivery.

Speed, images, and the little things that leak money

A slow site loses visitors before they read a word, and with Lebanese mobile data and patchy connections, weight is money.

Speed check: on mobile data, does the home page appear in a few seconds, or do you stare at a blank screen? Heavy, uncompressed images and autoplay videos are the usual culprits. Ask the developer to compress images and remove anything that eats data without adding value.

Look for the small breaks:

• Spelling and Arabic text — read the actual words on the page. Typos, mixed-up English/Arabic, or leftover placeholder text are a bad sign.
• The browser tab — does it show your business name and a small icon (favicon), or "Untitled" and a blank square?
• Images loading — scroll the whole page slowly and watch for broken image icons.
• The 404 page — type a wrong address (yoursite.com/xyz) and check you get a friendly "page not found" instead of an ugly error.

None of this requires technical skill — it just requires you to slow down and actually look. If the site is in Arabic, confirm the right-to-left layout is clean and nothing is scrambled, since this is one of the details most often rushed at the end.

Confirm what's yours: domain, code, and passwords

A website can pass every click test and still not really be yours. This is the ownership handover, and it is the part that costs people the most later.

Before you sign off, get in writing and in hand:

• The domain (e.g. yourbusiness.com) registered under your name and your email — log in yourself and confirm you can see it. This is your digital identity; it must never sit in the developer's account.
• The source code — a full copy handed to you (a GitHub repo you own, or a zip file), so any future developer can continue the work.
• The hosting and admin passwords — you hold the master account and grant temporary access, not the other way around.
• How to edit content — if you were promised a dashboard (CMS) to change prices or photos yourself, log in and change something as a test.

If the developer stalls on any of these, that is the moment to pause the final payment, not after. Locking a client out of his own domain is the oldest trap in the market, and it is entirely avoidable if you check at handover.

Pay the right way: staged, in fresh dollars, protected

Reviewing the site and paying for it are two halves of the same moment. Never pay the full amount before you've done your walkthrough, and never pay in old "bank dollars" (lollars) when the agreement was fresh dollars — the difference in value is huge and must be clear from the start.

The safe structure is staged payments (milestones): a portion at kickoff, a portion at design approval, and the final portion released only after your full review passes. This is exactly where Furrsati protects you — the final payment sits in escrow and is only released when you confirm the work is genuinely done, not before. The developer knows the money is there and waiting, and you know you'll never pay for a half-finished site. Payouts reach the freelancer inside Lebanon the way that suits them — OMT, Whish, bank transfer, or USDT — with no Payoneer or PayPal needed. For a full walkthrough of how this works, read how to pay freelancers safely with escrow.

If you're still choosing who to hire or want to understand what the service should include end to end, our web development services page lays out the scope so your review has something concrete to measure against.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I check before accepting a website?

Open it on your own phone on mobile data, click every link and button, submit every form to confirm messages arrive, read the text for typos and leftover placeholders, and check speed. Then confirm the domain, source code, and passwords are all in your name before releasing the final payment.

How do I test a website on mobile properly?

Ask for the live link and open it on your own phone using mobile data, not the developer's wifi. Check that the layout fits the screen, buttons don't overlap, prices are readable without zooming, and the WhatsApp and phone links actually work. Test on both iPhone and Android if you can.

How do I know if the website is really mine?

Get three things in writing and in hand: the domain registered under your name and email, a full copy of the source code, and the master hosting and admin passwords. Log in yourself to confirm. If the developer keeps these under his own account, the site isn't truly yours.

What if I find problems after the developer says it's done?

Send back a simple written list of everything broken and hold the final payment until it's fixed. This is why staged payments and escrow matter — the last installment should only be released after your review passes, so you keep leverage until the work is genuinely complete.

Should I pay before or after reviewing the website?

Always review first, then release the final payment. Pay in stages: a portion at the start and the last portion only after your full walkthrough passes. Holding that final payment in escrow on a platform like Furrsati means you never pay for a site that isn't finished.

Ready to hire with your money protected

Reviewing a website well comes down to one careful hour: test it on your own phone, click everything, submit every form, check the speed and the text, and confirm the domain and code are in your name — then, and only then, release the payment. When you're ready to start, post your project on Furrsati and hire a trusted Lebanese developer with your final payment held safely in escrow until your review passes and you're completely satisfied.