Publish your site and restore versions
Publish your visual-builder draft live in one click, track unpublished changes, discard edits, and restore or roll back to any past version.
The visual builder holds your edits as a draft. Nothing goes live until you click Publish. At that point your whole storefront updates at once, layout included. Every Publish is saved, so you can roll back later.
How the draft works
The builder never auto-saves to your live site. As you edit:
- Colors, text, and the announcement bar preview instantly in the builder.
- A layout change previews too (the preview reloads into the new layout), but only reaches your live site on Publish.
- A status chip shows Unpublished changes (amber dot) or All changes published (checkmark).
Your draft is saved in this browser as you work. If you close or refresh the builder and come back, you'll see "Restored your unsaved changes" and pick up where you left off. Use the Discard action in that prompt if you don't want them.
Your own edits are saved only in this browser, not on a different device or browser, and never on the live site until you Publish. If you try to leave the builder with unpublished changes, your browser warns you first.
Changes from your assistant, and "Write it again"
Two things can put words in your draft from outside the builder, and both wait for you:
- Your assistant. Ask it in the chat to change the home page's words ("rewrite the About text in a friendlier voice", "rename the Why buy from us heading", "add a question about trade-ins") and it prepares an approval card showing the old and new words. Approving it saves to your website's draft, never to the live site. Undo on the card puts the previous draft back.
- Write it again (Website, Content & trust). The same writer that wrote your site's first words at onboarding runs on today's facts and puts a headline, a welcome paragraph, four reasons to buy, three questions and your search title in the draft.
When you open the builder afterwards, a bar at the top says who changed what and when. The words are already in the preview and in every editor, so you can fine-tune them before you Publish, or publish them as they are: the builder counts them as unpublished changes from the moment it opens, so Publish is ready straight away. Not what you wanted? Discard those changes in that bar clears them (your live site was never touched). If you had unsaved edits of your own in this browser, they are kept; only the parts the assistant changed after your last edit take the assistant's words.
Publish your changes
- Open Website → Open visual builder.
- Make your edits: pick a section in the editing panel on the left (or click it in the preview) to edit its words and settings; colors, fonts, layout, the menu and search titles are under Design in the top bar.
- Check the chip in the toolbar reads Unpublished changes. If it reads 1 to fix (or more), see Before you publish.
- Click Publish. The button shows Publishing… while it works.
- You'll see "Your changes are live", the chip flips to All changes published, and the preview reloads with the published result.
Publish replaces every builder-managed setting at once: theme, layout, colors, fonts and corners, the site's language, hero copy, About text, hours, the home page's sections, announcement bar, social links, featured inventory, the menu, search titles, logo, favicon and hero image. A field you've left blank publishes as empty. Settings the builder doesn't own (your custom domain, and location contact details) are left untouched.
Before you publish
The builder checks your draft the way Publish will, as you edit, and lists everything that would stop it, all at once:
- colors that are too close to read (it names the two colors, their contrast and which swatches to change);
- a picture in a section with no description;
- a link that is not a page on your site or a full web address (the announcement bar, a social link, the menu, a section's button);
- a box that must be filled in, or one that is too long (a section heading, a menu link's name, a search title).
While something is on the list, the chip in the top bar reads N to fix, and Publish opens the list instead of publishing, so you see every problem rather than one at a time. Each item has Show me: it opens the part of the editing panel that holds it (the menu or search editor when it is there) and puts the cursor in the box to fix. Publish later waits too: a draft that would be refused cannot be scheduled.
The list also has notes for things Publish accepts but your site quietly leaves out, like an announcement bar switched on with no words, or a section button with words but no link. Notes never stop Publish; the chip shows an information mark while there are any.
A few things only Publish itself can find out: that someone else published since you opened the builder, or that a picture was not uploaded for your dealership. Those still come back when you click Publish.
Name a version
Under Website, Version history, click a version's time (or its pencil) to give it a name, "Before the fall sale" or "New logo", so the list reads as decisions rather than timestamps. Enter saves, Escape cancels, an empty name clears it. The time stays underneath.
Publish later
Next to Publish is a calendar button, Publish later. Pick a day and time (at least twenty minutes out, up to ninety days) and press Schedule: your draft is saved to the server and goes live at that time, within about fifteen minutes of it, whether or not the builder is open. The bar at the top of the builder then says when, with Cancel the schedule; the draft stays either way. What publishes is the draft you scheduled: to change it, edit it and press Schedule again with the time you want, or press Publish to put it live now. Your managers get an inbox note when it goes live. If the publish is refused at that moment (a colour pair without enough contrast, a picture without a description), nothing changes on your live site, the bar says why, and the managers are told; fix it and publish.
Throw away a draft
Click Discard to drop all unpublished edits and snap back to what's currently live. It asks you to confirm first, because Undo cannot bring the edits back afterwards. Discard is only available while you have unpublished changes, and it takes everything unpublished with it, including words your assistant or "Write it again" put in the draft (the bar at the top of the builder offers the same as Discard those changes).
Restore a previous version
Every Publish saves a version. Your most recent versions are listed on the Website page, under Version history.
- Go to Website and scroll down to Version history.
- The newest version is badged Current and marked Live.
- Each row shows when it was published, plus its theme and layout.
- Click Restore on the version you want (the row shows Restoring… while it works).
- Confirm the prompt. You'll see "Version restored" and your live site updates.
Restoring is non-destructive. It re-publishes the old version as a new entry at the top of the history, so the version you restored from is still there. You can roll forward again the same way.
Restore brings back that version's logo and hero image too. Unlike Publish, a restore never deletes old images. They're kept on purpose so a rollback never points at a missing picture.
Look at a version in the builder first
Restore on the Website page puts a version live at once. To look at it first, open it in the builder instead:
- In the visual builder, click Version history at the top of the editing panel (under Site design). It is there once your site has been published, for owners and managers.
- Click Open on the version you want, then Open in the draft.
- Your draft becomes that version: the preview shows it (use the Page menu to look at every page), and a note says what it changes next to your live site.
- Change anything you like, then Publish to put it live. Or click Undo to go back to what you had.
Nothing goes live until you Publish, and your live site's versions are untouched. A version saved before a feature existed (search titles, the menu, the site's language, the favicon) keeps your current setting for it.
If a publish is blocked
If someone else (a teammate, or another open tab) published since you opened the builder, your Publish is rejected with a message that the live site was published by someone else. Reload the builder to pull in their changes, re-apply yours, then Publish again. This prevents a stale draft from silently wiping out newer work.
Force a refresh
Published changes purge your live site's cache automatically. If your live site ever looks stale, use the Refresh live site button at the top of the Website page to force-rebuild the public cache.
FAQ
Does my site change as I type in the builder?
No. Edits stay in your draft and only preview in the builder. Your public storefront updates when you click Publish.
Why didn't my new layout show until I published?
Layouts are part of the page structure, so the live site swaps to a new layout only on Publish. You can still preview the layout inside the builder before publishing: colors and text preview live, and the layout previews when you pick it.
Who can publish or restore?
An Owner or a Manager. Other team members, such as salespeople, can open the builder and edit a draft, but can't push changes live or restore a version. This works on all plans.
Will restoring an old version delete my newer work?
No. Restore re-publishes the old version as a new entry, and your other versions stay in the list. You can roll back and forward between them freely.
How many versions are kept?
The Version history card shows your most recent 12 published versions.
I published but the live site still looks old. What now?
Give it a moment; publishing purges the cache automatically. If it still looks stale, click Refresh live site on the Website page to force the public cache to rebuild.