Publish your site

This article covers publishing your site, the copy of your Staging to Production, the site your visitors see. You will be able to read the changes before publishing, start the publication, react if it fails and tell which data goes online.

Before you start

• Publishing the site requires the Administrator role and the Can publish option. Invite a member and choose their role explains how to give them. The Publish menu appears for every administrator. Without the Can publish option, the publish screen shows you the changes and tells you at the top that your account does not have this right. Only a site owner can give it to you. Other roles do not see this menu.
• You publish from your Staging, in its administration bar. The Production is not administered.
• Publishing sends the entire site. A page whose redesign is not finished goes with it, unless you write it in a new version.
• The site goes to Production only with its six required templates published on the Staging.

Publish to Production

1. In the administration bar of your Staging, open the Publish menu then click Publish to production. The Publish website to production screen opens.
2. Review the Changes going to production list. Each content type has a line with its number of changes, for example Pages 2 changes.
3. To see the detail of a type, click its line. It expands to show its content.
4. Check I confirm that I want to publish this website. The Publish to production button becomes clickable.
5. Click Publish to production. The screen shows each step, then the message Site published to Production.

You can close the tab during publication. The work continues on the server. If you reopen the screen, it shows the current step.

Once the publication is finished, each administrator of the site receives the notification Your site … has been published to Production.

Publish the required templates first

Six templates must be published on the Staging for the site to go to Production: Home page, Pages, Single Item (any type), 404 (Not Found), Modal and Side panel. Without one of them, part of the site would display badly online. A page opened in a modal, for example, would take the pages template, with the site’s header and footer inside the window.

As long as one is missing, the Publish website to production screen shows at the top, before the list of changes, the notice The site cannot go to Production: required templates are not published. Publish them first on the Staging: followed by the list of missing templates. The list of changes stays displayed. The I confirm that I want to publish this website checkbox and the Publish to production button stay grayed out.

1. In the notice, click the name of a template. Its editor opens. A template that did not exist is created as a draft.
2. Choose a creation in the catalog, or compose the template with your blocks.
3. Publish the template.
4. Return to the Publish website to production screen. When the six templates are published, the notice disappears. Check the box then click Publish to production.

A draft template does not count. The same templates are the first six steps of the Setup checklist box on the dashboard. Decide the appearance with templates describes them.

Understand why the button stays grayed out

When you cannot publish, the Publish website to production screen gives the reason at the top, as soon as it opens and before the list of changes. The list stays displayed below. If two reasons apply together, both notices are shown.

Read the changes before publishing

The list sorts the content by type: your pages, each of your content types, your categories, your compositions and your templates. Your legal documents come first and their group opens expanded. In this group, the Text column gives the edition that the publication will create.

A draft does not go online. To put it online with this publication, open it with the Edit link and publish it in the editor before publishing the site.

Under the content, the The design changed: line lists the parts of the design that differ from the Production. These parts are Colors, Fonts & text sizes, Spacing & corners, Logo, Favicon / app icon, Design images, SVG icons, Animations, Site styles or Custom CSS.

Understand what publishing does

A click on Publish to production starts three steps in this order. During each one, the screen shows Publishing in progress: followed by the step, for example Publishing in progress: backing up the Production…

The new Production is prepared next to the live one, then replaces it at once. Your visitors see the old site until that instant, then the new one. They never see a half-replaced site.

At each publication, the published, changed or removed addresses are sent to the search engines that follow the IndexNow protocol.

React to a publication that fails

If the copy fails along the way, the screen shows Publishing in progress: rolling back… and your Production returns to the copy made at the first step. Your live site stays the one from before the publication. The message Publication failed. Publish again. If it fails again, write to us. appears.

1. Reload the Publish website to production screen and start the publication again.
2. If it fails again, write to us. We look for the cause with you.

Your site’s history keeps each attempt, for example Publication to Production: failed, Production restored.

Know what goes online

Publishing copies what you build. The data your visitors produce stays in the copy where it was born.

A request sent by a visitor stays in your Production, even after ten publications. The Statistics screen and the request list each have a Production view and a Staging view.

See also

• Prepare a new version of a live page
• Restore a version of the site
• Share a preview of Staging
• Read your site’s history