# Publishing How a UOVA site goes from a draft in the editor to a live address, and where to manage its address, versions, visibility and removal. A site you build is a draft until you publish it. Publishing copies the draft into a stored snapshot, and the live site serves that snapshot at `https://.uova.io`. Publishing is available on every plan, including Free, and you must be signed in. Signed-out visitors to the editor see **Sign in to publish**. *Figure: Edit the draft, press Publish, and the site is served at its uova.io address. Later edits go live when you press Update.* ## What is true for every site - The live site is a snapshot, not your working copy. Edits go live only when you press **Update**. - The top-bar button reads **Publish** until the site has been published once, then **Update**. - The dashboard marks each site **Live** or **Draft** by whether a published snapshot exists. - Site HTML is not cached, but UOVA caches whether a page exists: a missing answer for 60 seconds and an existing answer for 5 minutes. A brand-new page can take up to about a minute to appear. - UOVA does not send a confirmation email when you publish. - Password protection is site-wide. In the dashboard, open Content & Memberships > **Access**, choose **People with the password** and set a password of 8 to 256 characters. It takes about a minute to apply, and locked sites are kept out of search. Page-level access is not available. ## Choose a guide - [Publish your site](https://www.uova.com/help/build/publish/publish-your-site): The four-step wizard, from address to a live site. - [Your uova.io address](https://www.uova.com/help/build/publish/your-site-address): Address rules, and why it is locked after the first publish. - [Versions and republishing](https://www.uova.com/help/build/publish/versions-and-republishing): What Update does, and how saved versions work. - [Unpublish or delete a site](https://www.uova.com/help/build/publish/unpublish-and-delete): Take a site offline, or remove it for good. - [Badge, search engines and abuse reports](https://www.uova.com/help/build/publish/badge-search-and-abuse): The Made in UOVA badge, indexing and the Report link. - [Domains](https://www.uova.com/help/build/domains): Buy or connect your own web address. ## Messages you may see when publishing If a publish stops, the window shows **Publish failed** (or **Update failed**) with the reason, and two buttons: **Try Again**, which returns to the review step, and **Cancel**. | Message | Meaning and what to do | | --- | --- | | "Your session isn't ready yet" | The editor has no signed-in session yet. The message tells you to refresh the page and try publishing again. | | "This site was changed in another tab or device." | Another tab or device saved a newer copy. The message tells you to reload before you publish, so the older copy does not go live, and says your edit in this tab is kept in Version history. | | "Your site is still loading" | The editor had no pages in memory and the saved copy could not be read yet. The message tells you to give it a moment and try Publish again. | | Some media couldn't be uploaded to permanent storage, so the site is too large to publish. Re-add the affected image/video (it will upload properly this time) and publish again. | The payload is over about 3.5 MB and still holds raw base64 images or video. | | Your page still mentions . Replace the template name before publishing. | Visible copy still names the template's showcase business (error TEMPLATE_BRAND_REMAINS). Change the copy. | | Publish failed (CONTENT_POLICY) | A content check refused the site. The site stays unpublished. | | Publish failed (UNKNOWN) | Shown for a refusal that carries no error code, for example when publishing is rate-limited to 10 requests per minute per IP address. Wait a minute and try again. | | Publish failed (RESERVED_SLUG) | The address is one UOVA keeps for itself. See [Your uova.io address](https://www.uova.com/help/build/publish/your-site-address). | Source: https://www.uova.com/help/build/publish