Publishing your articles: what happens and how to control it

Pressing Publish doesn’t just flip a switch. Mixo builds your article into a real web page, uploads it, updates your sitemap so Google can find it, and sets up the social preview tags — all in 10–30 seconds. Here’s exactly what happens and what you can control.

Before you can publish: your site must be published first

⚠️ Your Mixo site itself needs to have been published at least once before any article can go live. This is because articles inherit your site’s design — the same header, footer, fonts, and colours.

If you haven’t published your site yet, you’ll see an amber “Publish your site first” notice on your articles listing page with a link to do it. This is a one-time step — once your main site is published, you won’t see this notice again.

How to publish an article

There are two places to do it:

From the article editor — click Publish in the top bar (or at the bottom of the sidebar).
From the listing page — click the Publish button directly on a draft card.

Any unsaved changes are saved automatically before publishing starts.

What happens behind the scenes

In simple terms:

Mixo checks your plan to confirm you’re within publish limits.
Your article is built into a real web page — using the same design as your main site — and uploaded.
The card on your listing flips to a “Publishing…” state with a spinner during this time.
Typically takes 10–30 seconds.
The card flips to “Published” with a green badge, and your live URL becomes clickable.

The first time you publish in a section

The first time any article is published in a brand-new section, Mixo automatically re-publishes your main site at the same time to add the new section link to your header and footer. You’ll see a blue “Publishing main site” banner on the listing while this happens — it usually completes about 30 seconds after the article itself.

After this, the section link is live in your site nav for all visitors. This main-site republish only happens on first publish per section, not subsequent publishes.

Where your article goes live

The URL pattern is:

yoursite.com/{section-slug}/{article-slug}

For example: mybusiness.mixo.io/blog/bathroom-renovation-hackney

Click the View link on the article card to open it in a new tab once it’s live.

What gets updated automatically

Every publish (and every update) does these things for you in the background:

Sitemap.xml — the file that tells Google which pages exist on your site. Updated automatically so Google can discover your new article faster. No action needed.
Social preview tags (OG tags) — when someone shares your article link on WhatsApp, Facebook, or LinkedIn, they see a preview card with your article’s title, description, and hero image. These are set automatically from your SEO sidebar fields.

Updating an already-published article

When an article is live, the Publish button changes to “Update” in the editor.

Make your edits
Click Update
Same 10–30 second build process
Your changes replace the live version

Your site’s design changes apply to articles automatically

If you later change your site’s theme, colours, or fonts and republish the main site, all your published articles are automatically re-rendered with the new design. You don’t need to republish each article individually. This keeps your site looking consistent without any extra work on your part.

Unpublishing

Available from the sidebar in the article editor. This immediately removes the article from your live site. The article itself stays as a draft in your dashboard and can be re-published later.

⚠️ CRITICAL — Free plan users: Unpublishing does NOT give you back a publish credit. The slot is still counted against your 3-article limit. To free a slot on the free plan, you must delete the article entirely, not just unpublish it. This is the most common source of confusion — make sure you understand the difference.

Free plan publish limit — 3 articles

You can publish up to 3 articles per site on the free plan. Drafts are unlimited; only publishing is limited.

When you hit the limit:

A pink banner appears on the listing: “You’ve reached your 3-article free-plan limit”.
Any further drafts show a 🔒 lock badge.
The Publish button on locked drafts is disabled and shows ”🔒 Publish”.

To free a slot on the free plan:

✅ Delete a published article — frees the slot. (Permanent and cannot be undone, but the slot is released.)
✅ Upgrade to Business or Premium — limit removed entirely.
❌ Unpublishing does NOT free a slot. The slot stays held until you delete the article.

“Upgrade needed” articles

If you click Publish on an article that pushes you over the limit (for example, an article that was mid-publish when another article finished publishing), it lands in an “Upgrade needed” state with an amber lock badge. The card has Edit, Retry, and Upgrade options.

The good news: upgrading your plan automatically releases articles in this state and completes the publish. No need to click anything else.

If publishing fails

The card turns red with a “Publish failed” badge. Click Retry to try again. Failures are rare and usually resolve on the first retry.

If it keeps failing, contact support.

Cancelling a stuck publish

If publishing takes longer than expected, a Cancel button appears on the card after 30 seconds. Cancelling returns the article to draft state with no changes to the live site.

Publishing tips

Don’t publish all your drafts on the same day. Spacing publishes out over weeks gives Google more reason to keep coming back to your site, and trains it that your site is regularly updated.
Verify your meta title and meta description before publishing. They’re the headline and snippet that show in Google search results — they directly influence whether someone clicks. See How to edit your draft before publishing.
Test the social preview by sharing the live URL into a WhatsApp chat with yourself. The preview card uses your hero image, meta title, and meta description.

What’s next

Now that your article is live, learn how to keep your library tidy: see Managing your articles.