To allow visitors to access your website, you need to publish it. Saving your site is not the same as publishing it.
While Sitebuilder automatically saves your progress every 2 minutes, your visitors cannot see the changes until you publish your website.
When you publish your website, you can then share the link to your published site with your friends, clients, or family.
Previewing your site
When you work on your website in the Sitebuilder you see exactly what your visitors will see, including your template customization, images, and content. There's no need to preview the website in a separate window.
When you work on your website, you may want to keep it private until you are ready to go live. To keep your website hidden from visitors you may wish to keep saving it without publishing.
Before you publish
When you start working on your site in the Sitebuilder, your website is private by default. This means that only the site owner and people who help to create a website can see it. Your site is hidden from search engines at this point.
When editing your site, your changes won't be publicly visible until you save your changes and publish your site.
Publishing your site
When you are done making changes to your site, click the Publish button in the top-right corner of the Sitebuilder:
Alternatively, go to the main menu in the top-left corner of the Sitebuilder and choose the option Publish from the dropdown menu.
When you publish
After you press Publish, your site goes live and can be viewed online. It is accessible by:
- Pressing the View your published site link.
- Entering the URL of your domain name in the browser
Note: if you cannot see changes you have made to your published site, you may want to clear the cache and try again.
Saving and publishing: What's the difference?
Other helpful articles
Where to view your published site
Publishing to a free subdomain
Note: Your free subdomain name is auto-generated based on the website name which you can set in the Website > Settings menu.
For example, if the site name is My perfect site, the auto-generation mechanism would pick the most suitable subdomain, eg. ”my-perfect-site” or ”my-perfect-site-2” if ”my-perfect-site” is already used by some other site.
It’s good practice to set a meaningful website name before publishing your website for the first time.
Note: You cannot change the auto-generated subdomain name. Make sure to set your website name the way you want it to appear in the subdomain URL before publishing your site for the first time. You can do this in the main menu.
In the vertical menu, choose Publish.
Publishing to a custom domain
You also have an option to publish to a custom domain. You can purchase your custom domain with a variety of top-level domains and popular country-code extensions. You can also choose how long to register your domain (one, two, or five years). To publish to a custom domain:
1. Click Publish in the main menu or in the top-right corner of the Sitebuilder.
2. After your site has been published to the free subdomain, click the Get your domain button:
3. Alternatively, click the Buy a domain button in the top-right corner of the Sitebuilder and continue to find your perfect domain name:
Note: You get a free custom domain when you purchase one of the annual hosting packages: Yola Bronze, Yola Silver, or Yola Gold. This offer includes free domain privacy for one year as well as two months of hosting for free.
What happens after your site has been published
After publishing your site you can easily make changes at any time, so there is no need to wait until your site is "finished" before you publish it.
Remember that a good website is always "under construction" and you should continue to update your site as often as possible after you publish it.
Making your website accessible for visitors
Once you have published your site, your visitors will be able to view it by clicking on a link that you provide, or by typing your URL (website address) into the address bar of their browsers.
Please note that you may not be able to immediately find your site in search results as it takes time for newly published sites to be indexed by search engines. Take a peek at our collection of SEO tutorials for more information on how to help your site appear in search results more quickly.
Your website online status
When you start working on your site in the Sitebuilder, your website is private by default. This means that only the site owner and people who help to create a website can see it. Your site is hidden from search engines at this point.
When editing your site, your changes won't be publicly visible until you save your changes and publish your site.
Keeping website private
When you work on your website, you may want to keep it private until you are ready to go live. To keep your website hidden from visitors you may wish to keep saving it without publishing.
Note: Yola Sitebuilder automatically saves your website while in progress every 2 minutes.
Where to view your published site
There are three ways of viewing your website after you have made changes. Here they are:
1. When you publish your website, you can click on the link View your published site on the confirmation screen:
2. Go to the main menu in the top left corner of the Sitebuilder:
3. You can also enter your domain name or site URL in the browser.
Note: if you cannot see changes you have made to your published site, you may want to clear the cache and try again.
Making changes to your site after it has been published
You can make changes to your site after it has been published. Updating your site frequently improves your search engine ranking and encourages visitors to return regularly.
If you are thinking of redesigning your site completely, it is a good idea to start a brand-new site for your redesign. This way, you can create a new site and keep a copy of your original site in case you change your mind about your new site.
You can easily apply changes to your published site at any time by clicking Publish.
Why you should update your site often
When you frequently update your site with new content, be it text or images, it helps your search engine rankings. Here’s why:
- Search engine crawlers understand that your site is offering new and relevant information and prioritize it when crawling.
- Frequent updates encourage visitors to return regularly, which indicates to search engines that your site is offering fresh and useful information.
Note: The Save button saves all the changes which were made but does not publish these changes. Publishing your site sends all your changes to your published or live site. Saving allows you to work on your site and only put it live when you are ready. Read this article about the difference between saving and publishing.
Whenever you want to make changes to your published site:
- Log in to your My Yola account.
- Select the site you'd like to edit. It will open in the Sitebuilder.
- Edit and update your site as required.
- When you are done, click the Publish button.
- Your published site will be updated with the changes you've made.
Important: If you are thinking of redesigning your site completely, it is a good idea to create a brand new site for this redesign. This will allow you to keep a copy of your old site and bring it back to life in case you change your mind.