A publisher website can look ready to an editor while still containing a small mismatch in its registration details or homepage template. A repeatable check before registration—and after important site changes—helps your team catch those problems early.
Use this publisher website verification checklist to review the deployed site, record the details you checked, and assign responsibility for maintenance.
Know what publisher verification covers
Congrid connects member websites through content recommendations and uses independent verifiers to check participating sites. Its publisher requirements center on a registered domain, a Congrid wallet, and a member badge on a publicly reachable homepage.
That check has a specific purpose. A verified publisher status does not certify every statement on a website, establish its editorial quality, or determine its Google rankings. For an overview of discovery and participation, read the publisher guide to decentralized content recommendations.
Check the public homepage
Start with the homepage that a visitor can actually reach, rather than an editor preview or an unpublished staging version.
- Open the public homepage in a signed-out browser session.
- Confirm that you reach the intended publication.
- Review whether a login screen, maintenance page, or access restriction prevents public access.
- Check again after the production deployment finishes.
Record the URL you tested and the time of the check. If an editor reports that the badge was added but the deployed homepage does not show it, resolve that difference before continuing.
A screenshot can help your team document a release, but it should accompany a check of the live page. An image of a preview does not establish what the public site currently serves.
Compare the domain and wallet details
The publisher onboarding guide uses your website domain and Congrid owner wallet address to prepare registration and badge code. Keep those details consistent with the registration you intend to maintain.
Use one working record for the review:
- Domain: The website domain being registered.
- Owner address: The public Congrid wallet address intended to receive publisher rewards.
- Reviewer: The person who compared those values.
- Review date: When the deployed homepage was checked.
Compare the full public address rather than relying on a shortened label in a screenshot. If two team members have copied different values into separate notes, reconcile the records before deploying changes.
The onboarding page explains that private keys and recovery phrases stay in your wallet. Your review record needs the public address, not wallet secrets.
Review the generated member badge
Use the embed code generated by the publisher onboarding page as the reference for the badge deployment.
The current guide requires the badge on the homepage at /, with the surrounding link's href exactly equal to https://congrid.net. The domain and wallet in the member badge need to match the registration.
During the review:
- Confirm that the production homepage includes the generated member badge.
- Compare its configured values with the domain and public owner address in your working record.
- Check the link value against the exact URL in the current onboarding instructions.
- Repeat the check after any template transformation or deployment step that could change the embed.
For example, a team might add the badge to an article template while leaving the homepage template unchanged. That would not satisfy the documented homepage placement requirement. Check the root homepage directly rather than assuming a badge elsewhere covers it.
Complete registration using the current guide
A correct homepage and a submitted registration are separate parts of the workflow. Follow the current publisher onboarding instructions for the registration step, including the wallet or CLI path you choose.
Keep a record of what you actually completed. “Badge deployed,” “registration submitted,” and “publisher status confirmed” should remain separate entries until each is established.
When checking a result, distinguish your own preparation notes from a status reported by the protocol. If status is still unresolved, record the time and the evidence available instead of marking the entire process complete.
Add the checklist to site releases
Publisher requirements continue after onboarding. The Congrid guides describe keeping the homepage verified as part of ongoing participation.
Include a short publisher check when releasing changes to:
- The homepage layout or shared site templates.
- The website's domain or public availability.
- The member badge configuration.
- The receiving wallet or other registration details.
The current publisher instructions require registering again when the owner wallet changes; the new owner takes effect after verifier consensus confirms the change. Consult those instructions when planning the update rather than treating a template edit alone as completion.
Assign a maintenance owner who can coordinate both the website change and the registration review. That reduces the chance that one person considers the work finished while another required step remains open.
Keep a useful verification record
A simple review note can make handoffs clearer:
- Public homepage checked: URL and time.
- Domain compared: Value and reviewer.
- Public owner address compared: Value and reviewer.
- Homepage badge reviewed: Placement, configured details, and link.
- Registration evidence reviewed: What was submitted or confirmed, with the relevant reference.
- Open issue: The specific mismatch or unresolved status.
- Next check: Owner and planned review date.
Use precise descriptions. “Homepage badge missing after template deployment” gives the next person a place to start. “Verification broken” leaves them to repeat the investigation.
Finish by reviewing the current publisher onboarding page. Keep this checklist with your release process so future changes receive the same attention as the initial setup.