The site editor has two states, and the difference matters: what you see while editing, and what the public sees. They are not the same until you publish.
#Draft and published
| You, in the editor | Your visitors | |
|---|---|---|
| Before you publish | Every change, live in the preview | The last published version |
| After you publish | The same | The same |
Edit across several sessions without publishing and nobody sees a partial site. Nothing reaches the public until you press the button.
#The preview
The panel on the right is your actual website, not a picture of one. It updates as you type, you do not save first to see a change. It is the same rendering your visitors get, so if it looks right there, it is right.
#The toolbar
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Publish | Pushes everything you have changed to the live site |
| Desktop / Mobile view | Switches the preview between screen sizes. Worth using, most of your visitors are on a phone |
| Refresh preview | Reloads the preview if it looks stale |
| Close | Leaves the editor |
Labels are dropped for space; the buttons themselves are all still there.
#Check the mobile view before you publish
A hero image and headline that look composed on a wide screen often collide on a narrow one, the text wraps differently and lands on the busy part of the photo. Switching to mobile view takes a second and catches it.
#When your site is visible at all
Separately from publishing, a brand-new site stays closed to visitors until you reach the Review step of setup. Before that, anyone visiting is redirected away rather than shown an unfinished site. Once you pass Review, the site opens and publishing controls what is on it from then on. See Your website copy.