Preview and publish your website

A new website starts as a draft. Only people with the preview link can see it. When everything looks right, you publish it and it becomes public. Individual pages also have their own drafts, so you can keep improving a live site safely.

Before you start #

• Work through the setup checklist on your Dashboard: business information, a location with phone and hours, your logo, a theme, some inventory and a lead notification email.
• Publishing the whole website needs the settings.manage permission (the Tenant Owner and General Manager roles by default). Requesting go-live, when your dealership needs approval, is done by an owner in the setup wizard.

Preview your website #

1. Open the Dashboard.
2. Select Preview website at the top right, or Preview your website in the setup checklist. Your site opens in a new tab.
3. Click around: the preview link lets you browse the whole site, not just the home page.
4. Back on the dashboard, select mark preview as done to tick the item off.

(open full size)

1. Preview your website. Opens the private preview link.
2. Publish your website. Takes you to the publish button.
3. Preview website. The same preview link, always available at the top of the dashboard.

Publish the website #

1. Finish the setup checklist and preview the site.
2. On the Dashboard, select Publish website in the setup checklist.
3. Confirm. Your website is now public, and the dashboard says "Your website is live."

Your site is then reachable at your platform address and at any custom domain you have connected. See Domains and HTTPS.

When go-live needs approval #

Some dealerships are set up so that the MotoDealerHQ team approves the launch. In that case the dashboard shows request go-live instead of Publish website.

1. Open the setup wizard's go-live step (the request go-live link).
2. Complete every required item on the validation checklist, for example finishing the wizard steps and turning on two-factor sign-in for every owner.
3. Send the request, with an optional note.
4. The platform team approves it or tells you what to change. You get an email either way. After approval, your website is public.

See Setup wizard for the full checklist.

Private websites #

A website can also be marked private, for example for a sales demo or while a launch is being prepared. A private site can be opened by anyone who has the address, but:

• search engines are told not to index any page, and robots.txt blocks them;
• there is no sitemap and no blog RSS feed;
• marketplace feeds and the web store's product feed cannot be turned on.

Only the platform team can make a private site public, through an approved go-live request.

Preview changes to a live site #

Once your site is live, you keep working in drafts:

• Pages: in the block editor, select Save & preview or Preview draft. The draft opens in your real theme. Visitors still see the published version until you select Publish. See Pages and blocks.
• Blog posts and events: save them as drafts and publish when ready. A future publish date schedules a post.
• Theme, menus, promotions and redirects: these changes are live as soon as you save. Make them at a quiet time, then check the site.

Tips #

• Preview on your phone too. Most shoppers visit dealer websites on a phone.
• Check every form once by sending a test message, then delete the test lead.
• Before launch, review the legal page templates (Terms of Use, Accessibility Statement, California Privacy Rights) and publish the ones you need.

Permissions #

Limitations #