Pages
Adding pages, giving them an address, and controlling how they look in Google and when somebody shares them. Most of the last part fills itself in.
The short version
- Add a page from the New button in the editor.
- Its Friendly URL is its address on your site.
- Search and sharing details fill themselves in from your copy.
- A page can be Inactive, so you can build it before anyone sees it.
- Every page keeps a version history.
Adding a page
The New button in the editor's Files tab adds one without leaving what you are doing, and anything unsaved stays intact. Give it a title and it opens ready to edit. You can also ask the chat for one: "add a careers page".
If you have saved a page template, you can start from that instead of from blank, which is worth doing once you have several pages that share a shape. To save one, use Save as page template in a page's menu in the Files tab.
The page's address
The Friendly URL is what goes after your domain: lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens, with slashes for nested pages like "services/repairs". Page settings call it the Address. Keep it short and readable. Prefer "about" over "about-us-page", and use words rather than numbers.
Changing the address of a page that is already live breaks any link to the old one. If people have linked to it or you have printed it anywhere, set up a redirect from the old address to the new one.
Inactive pages
A page's Status can be set to Inactive, which means visitors cannot see it yet. Your team still can, through the preview link. That lets you build something over a few sessions without visitors finding it half-finished.
Your home page
One page is the home page, and it is what people get when they type your address with nothing after it. You can change which one it is at any time, with the Home page switch in a page's settings.
How the page looks in Google
Two things matter: the title in the browser tab, and the sentence underneath it in the results.
Both fill themselves in. The title comes from the page's title and your website's name, and the description from the page's opening paragraph. You do not have to set them, and a page you never touched is not missing them. The boxes, under Search and sharing in a page's settings, are there for when the automatic version is not what you would have said. Write one for me drafts a description for you.
Override the title when the page's heading is not how somebody would search for it. Override the description when the first thing on the page is not the point of the page.
How the page looks when shared
Links shared on social apps or in a message show a picture and a title. The picture is chosen from the page automatically, and you can set a different one.
There is a preview showing roughly how it will come out. Worth a look for your home page and anything you expect people to share; not worth doing for all forty pages.
Members-only pages
Any page can be marked members only, which sends visitors who are not signed in to your login page. That needs member accounts turned on for the site first.
Version history
Every page keeps its own history, reachable from its row in the editor's file list. You can look at an earlier version and put it back.
This is worth knowing before you need it, because it turns "I have ruined this page" into a two-click problem.