Site status

Every Avero Site has one status: Draft, Published or Taken down. The status decides what visitors see on any domain connected to the site. You set it on the site's Settings screen at /admin/sites/:siteId, and you can read it from the Sites list at /admin/sites. This page explains what each status does and why the badges around the admin do not all use the same words.

For the rest of the Settings screen, see Site settings & publishing.

Who can use it

• Changing the status needs the storefront.manage permission. Of the built-in roles, only Admin has it.
• Seeing the status only needs you to be signed in.
• The Settings screen does not hide its controls from staff without the permission. They can pick a status and choose Save changes, but the save is refused and the message reads "Failed to save".

The three statuses

Status in Settings	What visitors see on a connected domain
Draft — not live	Your legacy site, exactly as if the domain were not connected to this site. Your built pages are not served.
Published — live	This site, through whichever Renderer you chose in Settings.
Taken down	A plain page headed "This site is no longer available" on every page, the shop and checkout included.

A "connected domain" is a domain you attached to this site on its Domains screen. A site with no connected domain has nothing for visitors to reach, so its status changes nothing for them yet.

Draft

A new site always starts as a Draft. The Settings screen describes it as "Not live. A connected domain keeps serving your legacy site until you publish." While a site is a Draft:

• The Renderer setting has no effect on visitors.
• The site's redirects are not applied.
• You can still build, edit and publish pages. A published page waits until the site itself is Published.

Published

"Live. A connected domain serves this site." Visitors get your built pages when Renderer is Avero Sites (page builder), or the legacy website when it is Legacy hosted site (current). The site's redirects apply.

Taken down

Every page visit on a connected domain gets a short page that reads "This site is no longer available" and "The site you are looking for has been taken down." Visitors do not fall back to your legacy site, and they cannot shop or check out on that domain. The page also tells search engines not to list it.

Taking a site down removes nothing. Your pages, design, domains and settings stay as they are, and you can keep editing in the admin while the site is down.

Taking a site down stops online sales on its domains

The shop and checkout on a connected domain stop working along with the rest of the site. Sales at the register are not affected.

Change the status

1. Open the site from Sites, then choose Settings in the left rail.
2. In the General card, pick a Site status: Draft — not live, Published — live or Taken down. The line under the box tells you what that choice does.
3. Choose Save changes. The message reads "Site updated".

Choosing Taken down asks you to confirm first:

Take this site down? Every page on a domain connected to this site — including the shop and checkout — will answer “This site is no longer available” until you set it back to Published.

Take site down saves the change. Cancel closes the question without saving. The box still shows Taken down after you cancel, so pick the status you want before you save anything else on the card.

No other change asks you to confirm. Moving a Published site back to Draft saves straight away and visitors go back to your legacy site.

The new status applies as soon as it saves. If a domain still shows the old behavior, give it a minute and reload.

Bring a site back

Set Site status to Published — live and choose Save changes. The site returns as it was. You can also move a taken-down site to Draft — not live, which puts its domains back on your legacy site.

There is no button to delete a site. Taken down is as far as a site can be retired from the admin.

What the status badges show

Four places in the admin show the status, and they do not use the same words. The Sites list says Archived for the status that Settings calls Taken down, and the dashboard toolbar says Draft for it.

Where	Draft	Published	Taken down
Sites list, on each site card	Draft (amber)	Published (green)	Archived (grey)
Site dashboard toolbar	Draft	Live	Draft
Overview, Site health card	Draft	Published	Taken down
Settings, Site status	Draft — not live	Published — live	Taken down

The Site health card on Overview is the clearest of the four. Its first row reads:

• Published — "Site is live".
• Draft — "Not live — visitors still see your legacy site", with a Publish button.
• Taken down — "Site is offline — its domain shows “no longer available”", with a Settings button.

Both buttons open the Settings screen. Neither changes the status for you.

Check a "Draft" chip before you trust it

The toolbar chip only knows two words. It shows Live for a published site and Draft for everything else, so a taken-down site looks like a draft there. Check Site health or the Sites list to tell them apart.

Site status and page status

A site's status is separate from each page's own status. A page is published from the editor, and that page reaches visitors only when the site is Published and on the Avero Sites renderer. See Build your Avero site.

The preview link from Share draft or Rotate does not depend on the site's status. It shows the current draft whether the site is a Draft, Published or Taken down.

Reference

Control	Where	What it does
Site status	Settings, General	Picks Draft — not live, Published — live or Taken down.
Save changes	Settings, General	Saves the status, along with the site name and renderer.
Take site down	Confirmation	Confirms a change to Taken down.
Publish	Overview, Site health	Opens Settings for a Draft site. It does not publish by itself.
Settings	Overview, Site health	Opens Settings for a taken-down site.
Visit site	Dashboard toolbar	Opens the site's domain, in whatever state visitors currently see.

Troubleshooting

• Visitors see "This site is no longer available" — the site is Taken down. Set Site status to Published — live and save.
• The Sites list says Archived — that is the same status as Taken down. The list uses a different word.
• The toolbar says Draft but the domain shows "no longer available" — the site is Taken down. The toolbar chip shows Draft for any site that is not published.
• Visitors still see the old website after I published pages — the site is still a Draft, or its Renderer is still Legacy hosted site (current). Both are on the General card in Settings.
• "Failed to save" — your role does not have storefront.manage. Ask an Admin to make the change.
• I changed the status and nothing happened for visitors — check that a domain is connected to this site on the Domains screen.

Related

• Site settings & publishing — the rest of the Settings screen, including the renderer and redirects.
• Build your Avero site — creating a site, building pages and publishing them.
• Site design & domains — connecting a domain to a site.
• Your online storefront — the shop and checkout that a taken-down site switches off on its domains.