What this stage settles
Going live is not one action. It is a deploy, plus the setup that decides whether you will be able to see anything afterwards.
The order matters more than it looks: measurement installed after launch loses the launch, and ownership verified on the wrong property means the data you check for months is not your site's.
Consent is part of this stage, not a legal tidy-up afterwards. Microsoft enforces consent signals for EEA, UK and Swiss traffic, and a tool that fires before consent is a problem you ship, not a problem you find.
Steps
Guide
Deploy it somewhere real
A live URL, a domain that points at it, and a build you can redeploy on demand. Everything below is set up against that environment, not against a staging copy you will replace next week.
Install measurement behind consent
One container, GA4 fired through it, Clarity beside it, and nothing firing before the visitor has said yes.
Prove ownership to Google and Bing
Verify the property, submit the sitemap, and record which account owns it. Otherwise the site is live and nobody owns its search data.
Clear the legal gate before the first visitor
Privacy policy, cookie policy, consent text and any market restriction have to be live and approved. Missing legal wording stays visible as missing; the agent never writes it.
Write down what you actually launched
The live URL, the container id, the measurement id, the Clarity project, the Search Console and Bing properties, the sitemap URL, and the decisions still open. The next stage starts from this note.
Be Aware
Tracking tools are installed in several places at once.
Use GTM as the main control point and document any justified exceptions explicitly.
Search verification succeeds on the wrong property or the wrong environment.
Write down the exact property type, live URL, owner account, and sitemap URL before you leave the setup step.
Consent is treated as a post-launch tidy-up.
Make consent handling part of the launch checklist wherever Clarity or other behavior tools process regional traffic under consent requirements.
Return to the Main Guide?
Main guide
Start Your Website Factory
