Guide

Website not publishing?

Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy · 7-minute read · Facts checked Oct 17, 2026

A website not publishing in Squarespace, Wix or GoDaddy is usually a missing Publish click, a trial or lapsed plan, or a domain pointing elsewhere.

In short: your website is a shop. Editing is arranging the window in the back room. Nobody sees it until you open the door (Publish, on a plan that is paid up), and nobody finds the shop until the street sign (your domain) points at it. Any one of the three can be the missing step.

1. First, see what the public sees

Your editor always shows your latest work, so it can't tell you what visitors get. Open your website's address in a private window, or on a phone with Wi-Fi off. Then find your case:

  • You see the old version: the new one is probably live and you're looking at a saved copy. Website still shows the old version sorts that out, and Clear your cache has the steps.
  • You see a private, password, "Coming Soon" or "Page Not Found" page: the site isn't published. Go to your builder below.
  • You see nothing, or a different site: the address isn't connected to your site. See the next section.

2. Causes that apply to every builder

Changes to DNS (the records that point your domain at your site) can take time to spread. Wix and GoDaddy (for Airo AI Builder) both say up to 48 hours. What is DNS? explains why.

3. Squarespace website not publishing, or site not live

Squarespace sites are private until you choose otherwise. Squarespace says all sites start as Private, and only owners and contributors with login permission can see a private site. Visitors see a "Private Site" message. Check these in order.

  1. Is it a free trial? A trial site is private, and visitors who try to open it see the owner login page. To publish to everyone, you start by upgrading to a paid plan. A password lets people view a trial, but it doesn't make the site public.
  2. Open the Site Availability panel. It has three choices: Public, Password Protected and Private. Pick Public and click Save. Public needs a paid subscription.
  3. Can't change it? Squarespace says to check your site's SEO description. If it's over 300 characters, shorten it to 300 or fewer and try again.
  4. Still asked for a password after you took off the site-wide one? Check whether your home page has its own page password, and turn that off.
  5. One page missing? In the Pages panel, hover over it, click the gear icon, and check that the Enable Page toggle is on, then click Save. Squarespace says a disabled page doesn't appear in your navigation and isn't reachable by visitors or search engines. A page in the Not linked section stays active but is hidden from your navigation.

Site not updating? Some edits aren't public until you save them. Squarespace lists layout pages, blog posts, events, products, page descriptions, style and design settings, and content areas like footers. Gallery images and navigation changes show once a visitor refreshes the page.

If the page says "Website expired", that's billing: see this guide.

4. Wix website not publishing, or site not updating

In Wix, saving isn't publishing. Wix says edits go live on the Internet only after you publish.

  1. In your editor, click Publish at the top right. Preview only shows you what visitors would see. It doesn't publish. In Wix Studio the button is in the same place, and you can also click Publish from preview mode.
  2. Did someone unpublish it? In the Wix Editor you do that with Site, then Unpublish Site. Visitors then see a "Page Not Found" message even at the direct address. You keep your domain, your plan and the editor. Click Publish again to bring it back.
  3. Check the plan. Open Premium Subscriptions (or My Premium plans, if you connected a domain by name servers or pointing) and read the Status. If it's expired or not active, the plan needs sorting out before the domain will work.
  4. Check the domain is assigned. Where Wix lists your domains, one that says Not Assigned to a Site has an Assign button. If it's assigned to another site, choose Assign to a Different Site.
  5. Wait. Wix says that after DNS or name server changes, it can take up to 48 hours for your domain to connect.

Using Wix Studio with your own code? Wix checks the code when you publish. If it finds errors, you can go on publishing or go back to the editor to fix them. A free Wix Studio site gets an address that looks like accountname.wixstudio.io/site-name. Your own domain needs a premium site.

5. GoDaddy website not publishing, or not updating

GoDaddy sells more than one website builder. Its help page "Which GoDaddy website builder do I have?" lists the classic Websites + Marketing Website Builder, Airo AI Builder (a separate product with its own plans) and Airo for WordPress (included with Managed Hosting for WordPress). Find yours in your account first.

Websites + Marketing (the classic builder). GoDaddy stores your changes on your device as you go, but the public sees them only when you publish.

  1. On your GoDaddy product page, expand Websites + Marketing and select Manage next to your site.
  2. Select Edit Website, then check your changes with Preview.
  3. Select Publish. The first time, GoDaddy says you may be asked to connect your site to a domain.
  4. Seeing a "Coming Soon" page instead of your site? GoDaddy says that once a site is unpublished, visitors see a "Coming Soon" page. To unpublish, it's Settings, then Unpublish in the editor. Publish again to bring the site back. If a site is live, edits don't appear until you publish again.
  5. Still not showing? Check in your GoDaddy account that your plan hasn't expired and that your domain is connected to the site. We haven't checked GoDaddy's own steps for this, so if it still fails, ask GoDaddy.

Airo AI Builder. To connect your own domain, GoDaddy lists two requirements: a paid Airo AI Builder plan and a published site or app. The DNS change can take up to 48 hours. We haven't checked its other publishing steps, so for anything else ask GoDaddy.

Airo for WordPress builds a WordPress site you can edit in your WordPress dashboard, so the WordPress advice in the old-version guide is the place to start. We haven't checked GoDaddy's own publishing steps for it.

6. Check from the outside

  • Site health tells you whether your address answers at all, whether the padlock works, and when your domain expires.
  • Google and share preview shows the page as a search result and a shared link would. If your new title or description isn't there, the public copy hasn't changed.
  • Full Check runs every check on the live page, once it's public.

Automated checks can miss a problem or flag something that's fine. If one is wrong, tell us and we'll fix the check.

The short version

Look at your site in a private window. If it shows a private, password, Coming Soon or Page Not Found page, publish it: Public in Squarespace, Publish in Wix, Publish in GoDaddy Websites + Marketing, on a plan that is paid up. If the builder says it is live, check the domain.

Send this to your builder's support team

Not sure what to say? Copy this into an email, add your website's address, and send it.

Hi,

My website is not showing to the public.

My website: [yourname.com]
Builder and plan: [Squarespace, Wix or GoDaddy, and the plan name]
What I did: [for example, clicked Publish on Oct 17]
What visitors see: [for example, a Coming Soon page, a password page or Page Not Found]
Seen in a private window and on a phone with Wi-Fi off: [yes or no]

Could you check that the site is published, the plan is active, and my domain is assigned to this site and pointing at it? If something is missing, please tell me exactly what to change.

Thanks

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