Website Builder how-tos
How do I publish my Website Builder site so it goes live?
Click Publish in the top menu bar of the Website Builder. Your hosting account copies the site into your domain's website folder, and it goes live on your domain. After the first publish, any later edits only reach the live site when you click Publish again.
Before you publish: a short checklist
- All sample text and sample photos are replaced.
- Your phone number and email are correct and clickable.
- The contact form sends to an inbox you check, and you have tested it in the preview website.
- Every page has its own SEO title and description.
- You have checked phone, tablet and desktop views (Presentation mode shows all three).
- You have saved (Ctrl + S or the disk icon).
How to publish
- Open your site: Client Area > your service > cPanel > the Website Builder button, then edit your domain.
- Save your work.
- Click Publish in the top menu bar.
- You are sent back to the Website Builder screen in cPanel while the site is copied to your domain. Wait for it to finish.
- Open your domain in a new browser tab and check it. Your site is covered by a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate, so it should load at
https://with the padlock showing. If your domain's DNS is on Cloudflare, use the settings in our Cloudflare DNS guide.
If your domain already has a website
If there are already files in your domain's website folder (an old site, or a "coming soon" page), you will see a warning that the folder is not empty. Publishing removes those files.
- Choose Create a restore point. This keeps a copy of the old files in your account, so you can put the old site back later if you need to.
- If you skip the restore point, the old files cannot be recovered from that screen. Our offsite backups run three times a week (Monday, Tuesday and Friday) on every plan, but do not rely on them as your only copy. Create the restore point.
If you had a robots.txt file in that folder, save a copy before you publish. Publishing can remove it.
How to put the old site back
If you made a restore point, you can find a restore option for that domain on the Website Builder screen in cPanel (open the domain's details). It removes the builder site from the domain and puts back the files that were there before. Your work in the builder is kept, so you can publish it again later.
Publishing again after edits
Every new publish replaces what is live with what is in the builder. So:
- Edit and save as often as you like. Visitors will not see it.
- When you are happy, click Publish again.
- If you see the old version after publishing, the server cache may still hold the old copy. In cPanel, find the NGINX Caching option and click Clear Cache, then refresh. If you are publishing many changes in one session, you can switch NGINX caching off there while you work and back on when you are done.
If publishing fails
- Disk space: if publishing would put your account over its storage limit, you will be asked to free up space first. Contact us if you are not sure what to remove.
- "Something went wrong": wait a few minutes and try again. If it fails twice, email support@parsonshosting.com with the domain and the time you tried.
- Missing images on the live site: publish again. A brief network hiccup can occasionally leave a file behind.
After the site is live
- Open the site on your phone. Tap the menu, the phone number and the form.
- Send a test message through the live contact form.
- Add the web address to your Google Business Profile, invoices, truck and email signature.
- Set up Google Search Console so you can see how Google finds your pages.
Moving a site from another host?
If your current site lives somewhere else, we can move it for you. Most migrations are free; server setup or custom server-side changes are quoted in advance. See the FAQ for details.
Call 530-710-8726 or email support@parsonshosting.com with any questions. We reply the same day, often within an hour, during business hours (8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific, 7 days a week). Plans are on the Website Builder page.