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Publish your site

3 min read Updated Sep 7, 2026

Editing changes your draft. Publish is what changes the live site. Nothing a visitor sees moves until you press it.

Publishing

Press Publish in the builder. That page goes live.

Before you do, Changes since publish shows what is about to change - useful when you have been editing for a while, or when someone else has been editing too.

Page by page

Publishing works per page. A page can be:

  • published - live and visible,
  • unpublished - it exists in the builder but is not on the live site.

So you can build a new page over a week, publishing nothing, then publish it when it is ready. And you can pull a page off the live site without deleting it.

What does not need publishing

Some things are live the moment you save them, because they are not page content:

  • your global header and footer - editing them updates every page at once,
  • products, blog posts, menu items, bookings and other data,
  • most Settings.

A pre-publish checklist

  1. Look at the page on Mobile. Most of your visitors will.
  2. Click your own links, especially the button in the header.
  3. Check Page Settings has a Meta Title and Meta Description.
  4. Confirm the page is in the menu, if it should be.

Snapshots

Snapshots saves a restore point you can come back to. Take one before a big rework - it is much faster than undoing thirty steps.

Dev Mode

With Dev Mode on, every change publishes automatically. Convenient while you are setting up, and exactly what you do not want on a site real people are visiting. Turn it off before you have an audience.

Good to know

  • Published does not mean findable. Search engines take days to weeks. Publishing is the start of that clock.
  • If the live site looks stale, it is nearly always an unpublished page or a browser cache - reload with a hard refresh before assuming anything is broken. See Site not showing.

Next steps

Frequently asked questions

Does saving publish my changes?

No. Saving updates your draft; Publish is what changes the live site, and it works one page at a time. A page can sit finished and unpublished for as long as you like.

Why can I see my change but visitors cannot?

Almost always an unpublished page or a cached browser. Hard refresh first, then check the page's own published state rather than the site's.

Do I need to publish products, blog posts or settings?

No. Those are data rather than page content, and they are live as soon as you save them. The same is true of the global header and footer, which is why editing one changes every page at once.

How long until my site appears in Google?

Days to weeks for a new address. Publishing starts that clock rather than finishing it.

What is Dev Mode for?

It publishes every change automatically, which is convenient while you are setting up and exactly what you do not want once real people are visiting. Turn it off before you have an audience.

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