Publish your website and put changes online

Your website goes online when you click Publish in the editor. Nowistay first checks a short list (subscription, legal pages, approved photos, complete texts), then puts the site online at its address in a few minutes. After that, everything you change stays in your draft until you publish again with Publish the changes.

Open the publish panel

1. Go to Website in the left menu and open your website.
2. Click Publish at the right end of the editor bar. On a phone, open the … menu and choose Publish….
3. The Publish the website panel opens with the list Before publishing.

The checklist: what you need before publishing

Each line turns green when it is done. The publish button stays greyed out until every line is green. Under a line that is not ready, the panel says how to fix it, and some lines have an Open button that takes you straight to the right place.

1. The website is in your subscription: the website must be added to your subscription (Add to my subscription on the website page) and your account must be active. See Website subscription, AI credits and limits.
2. Your name or your company’s name is filled in: you are the publisher of the site. Click Open, then fill in Name or company name under Who publishes the site in the Legal pages panel.
3. The three legal pages are written: the legal notice, the privacy policy and the booking terms each need your own text, at least in the site’s main language. Nowistay already adds the facts it knows at the top of each page. See Legal pages of your website.
4. Every text exists in all the site’s languages: if your site is in English and Spanish and you added a FAQ answer in English only, switch the language at the top of that block and write the Spanish version. Approved blog articles count; drafts don’t.
5. Every photo shown is approved: photos imported from your Airbnb listing, or chosen by the AI, need your approval to confirm you may use them. Click Open, then Approve these photos under Photos to approve in Site settings. You can also click the orange To approve badge on a photo. Photos you pick yourself are approved by that choice.
6. No text left to complete: the example texts of the legal pages contain [TO COMPLETE] parts. Replace each one with your own information.

The agreement

When every line is green, the panel shows this sentence above the button: “By publishing, you confirm that your legal pages comply with the law of your country and that you have the right to use these photos on your site.” It applies at every publish, and Nowistay keeps a record of it with the version you put online.

Publish for the first time

1. Check that every line under Before publishing is green.
2. Read the agreement sentence.
3. Click Publish at the bottom of the panel.
4. The panel shows Publishing, a few minutes…. You can close it: publishing goes on.
5. When it is done, the panel shows Your website is live with a link to your address. A green Live badge appears in the editor bar, and Nowistay sends you a “Your website is live” notification (by e-mail or push, following your notification settings).

Your live address is the web address you chose when you created the site, for example moulin-des-trois-gites.nowistay.page, or your own domain once you connect one (see Your website address and your own domain name). Unlike the private preview, the live site can be found by search engines. To open it later, choose View the live site in the … menu.

Example: you manage 3 apartments in Lisbon and your site is in English and Portuguese. The first time you open the panel, two lines are orange: the legal pages and the photos. You click Open next to the legal pages, write your company details and your three texts, replace every [TO COMPLETE] part, then approve the 14 Airbnb photos in Site settings. All six lines turn green, you click Publish, and a few minutes later the site is live.

If publishing fails

The panel shows “The last publication did not go through. Your live site is unchanged.” with the reason. Nothing changes online: visitors keep seeing the previous version (or, for a first publish, nothing is online yet). Fix what the panel points to, then publish again. Common reasons:

• “A property has no position on the map. Check its address.”
• “A property has no guest capacity. Check its details.”
• “Your site is being updated for a scheduled article. Publish again in a minute.”

If a reason is unclear, choose Help in the … menu to ask our support team.

Put your changes online

Everything you change in the editor (texts, photos, blocks, pages, style, languages, properties) saves on its own, but only in your draft. The live site does not move until you publish again.

1. Make your changes and check them in the preview. If the preview says some changes aren’t in it yet, click Update.
2. Click Publish.
3. Check the list again: a new text written in one language only, or a new photo to approve, turns a line orange.
4. Click Publish the changes.
5. A few minutes later, the live site shows the new version.

Example: you add a “Getting here” page and change the photos of the home banner. Nothing changes online while you work. When the preview looks right, you click Publish, then Publish the changes, and both go online together.

A property or a language you removed in Site settings leaves the live site only at this moment. Its old pages then lead visitors to your properties page or to your home page.

If you published something by mistake, open Versions in the … menu, click Restore on an earlier version, then publish again.

What updates by itself, and what needs a new publish

Example: in November you write “What to do in winter around the gîtes”, approve it and schedule it for 1 December. You click Publish the changes once, and the article shows Scheduled for with its date. On 1 December, Nowistay puts it online by itself. More in Write a blog with AI.

Take your website offline

1. Open the … menu and choose Unpublish (in red, shown only while the site is online).
2. Read the message: “Visitors will see a page saying the site is unavailable. Your draft stays; publish again to put it back.”
3. Click Unpublish. The editor confirms Your website is offline.

Visitors who open your address see a simple page, in English and French: “Temporarily unavailable. This website is temporarily unavailable. Please come back later.” Search engines are told not to list it, and nobody can book from the site. Bookings already made are not affected.

To put the site back, click Publish again: the same checklist applies and the site returns at the same address.

Unpublishing does not stop billing: the website stays in your subscription. A published website can’t be deleted, so unpublish it first if you want to delete it.

If your subscription ends or a payment fails

• A payment fails: you have 8 days to settle it. During those 8 days the site stays online and you can still edit and publish. After 8 days without payment your subscription is suspended: within the hour the site shows the “temporarily unavailable” page, and the editor shows “Your subscription is not active. Settle it to edit your website.” with Go to my subscription. Once the payment is settled, the site comes back online by itself.
• You remove the website from your subscription: it stays online and editable until the end of the current billing period. The website page shows “This website ends on” with the date, and Keep my website if you change your mind. After that date, the site shows the “temporarily unavailable” page and you can no longer edit or publish it. Nothing is refunded.
• Your Nowistay subscription ends: your websites end on the same date as your subscription.

In every case, the website and its draft stay in your website list.