# Live site publishing

Most sites publish in two steps: Update builds a preview, Promote puts it live. That is the right choice when somebody should look before the public does. For an intranet or a handbook that changes every day, it is one step too many, and the live site drifts behind Confluence.

Live site publishing removes the step. Edit a page, and the published site follows on its own.

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## The two publishing modes

| **Mode**                  | **What happens when a page changes**                                                                              |
| ------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Preview, then publish** | The default. Nothing reaches the live site until somebody selects Update, checks the preview and selects Promote. |
| **Live site**             | Changes publish to the live site on their own. There is no staging preview and no Promote button.                 |

You choose the mode when you create a site, on the step headed How should changes be published?, and can change it later in Settings, General, under Publishing, which describes it as "How changes in Confluence reach your live site."

ℹ️

**Only Confluence admins can change the mode.** Collaborators see the setting with the note "Only Confluence admins can change this."

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## What a live site does

| **When it publishes**     | About one minute after edits stop. A page that keeps being edited never holds a publish back for more than about ten minutes. |
| ------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Publish now**           | On the site's Overview. Publishes straight away, including when a publish is already waiting.                                 |
| **The hourly check**      | Label changes, attachment-only changes and anything missed are picked up within an hour.                                      |
| **Drafts and blog posts** | Never published, in either mode.                                                                                              |
| **First publish**         | A new live site shows Not published yet until somebody selects Publish now. Until then, edits do not publish.                 |

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## Status on the Overview

The Production row on the Overview says where the site is:

| **Status**          | **What it means**                                                                        |
| ------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Not published yet   | The site has never been published. Select Publish now to put it online.                  |
| Changes detected    | Confluence has edits the live site does not have yet.                                    |
| Waiting to publish  | Edits are settling. The publish starts about a minute after the last one.                |
| Publishing changes  | A publish is running.                                                                    |
| Up to date          | The live site matches Confluence.                                                        |
| Last publish failed | The most recent publish did not finish. The live site still shows the version before it. |

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## Switching modes

* Switching to Live site asks you to confirm in a Switch to live site? dialog. A preview that was waiting to be promoted is hidden.
* Switching back asks you to confirm in a Switch to preview, then publish? dialog. The site keeps what is live and goes back to Update and Promote.
* Either way, the change shows a short confirmation: Live site turned on, or Preview, then publish turned on.

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## Limits

Each Confluence site gets 12 publishing steps an hour, shared by all of its sites. A live publish uses two, so a live site can publish about six times an hour. Edits made while the limit is reached publish once there is room again.

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## A few things worth knowing

* A live site has no preview, so a mistake in Confluence is public within minutes. Keep Preview, then publish for anything that needs a second pair of eyes.
* Labels such as capable-sites-exclude are picked up by the hourly check, not within a minute. Allow up to an hour for a page to disappear.
* Access settings still apply at once in both modes. Live publishing only changes how content reaches the site.

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## Related

### [Publish Confluence edits to a site automatically](https://help.gocapable.com/sites/publish-confluence-edits-to-a-site-automatically.html)

Turn it on, step by step.

### [Update and promote](https://help.gocapable.com/sites/update-and-promote.html)

The two-step mode.

### [Publishing](https://help.gocapable.com/sites/publishing.html)

Everything about getting content live.

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_Edit the page. The site keeps up._