Benefits of Webflow publishing
- Controlled publishes: Manage site changes with staging environments before going live. Anything that’s not in a page branch will be published and go live.
- Granular publishing: Publish specific CMS content or the entire site as needed.
- Fast deployment: Updates go live instantly without requiring manual coordination with external hosting services.
- Rollback safety: Quickly revert to previous versions with backup/restore if needed.
Save a custom backup before making major updates like full page redesigns, merging pages, or updating the site-wide navigation.
When to publish
- After publishing to staging: It’s important to review and test site updates in your staging subdomain before publishing to a live domain.
- Launching a new website: Making a site publicly accessible for the first time.
- Updating live content: Publishing new blog posts, landing pages, or design refinements.
- Deploying major redesigns: Releasing large-scale layout or branding updates.
CMS item publishing
For marketing teams that are making changes to CMS items, we recommend them to publish those individually in the CMS.
Enterprise publishing workflow
Enterprises have additional detail in their publishing view with a summary of changes and who made them and the ability to click into specific changes, which takes them to the Site Activity Log.
Unpublishing a site or page
We generally don’t recommend unpublishing a site unless it is being end-of-lifed / deprecated.
Publishing considerations
Who should publish
Type of change
Who should publish
How they should publish
Content changes (in the CMS)
Primarily content editors and marketers
CMS item publishing
Design system changes
Lead designers
Full site publishing
New pages
Marketers and designers
Full site publishing
General best practices
By following these best practices, you can ensure a smooth, error-free publishing process that maintains site integrity while allowing for rapid updates and improvements.
- For Enterprises, review the publish summary and detailed changes in the Site Activity log before publishing: ensure all changes are ready, tested, and approved
- Publish to staging first: Review changes in staging to reduce the risk of errors
- Coordinate with teammates: Avoid publishing unfinished changes
- Check SEO settings: Ensure meta descriptions and indexing preferences are correct.
- Leverage publishing permissions: Restrict publishing access where needed for better control.
- Monitor site performance post-publish: Check speed, layout, and mobile responsiveness after updates.
Write a Standard Operating Procedure for your organization around publishing. Include how to coordinate with everyone who has Site access. Organizations with Slack might consider adding a channel for this.
Next up: Monitoring and troubleshooting
As a Workspace admin, it's important to be able to monitor and troubleshoot what's happening in your Workspace.
More ways to level up
Help CenterFind solutions to your Webflow questions and get help from our expert customer support team.
Go to docs
CommunityConnect with other designers and developers to share tips, ask questions, and show off your work.
Go to forum