Taking Your Site Live
The domain is checked before anything happens, and you are told what it found.
Go Live is on the site's card on My Sites. It asks for your domain, checks it, and then tells you what it found rather than simply offering a button.
That check matters. It looks at DNS, at the security certificate, and at whether anything is already serving that domain — so you find out what will happen before it happens.
Before You Begin
Steps
Enter the domain
Type it without http:// and without a trailing path. Both example.com and www.example.com are accepted.
The check runs and reports one of four situations.
If the domain is ready
You are told it is ready: nothing is using it and DNS is pointing at us. Take it live issues a security certificate and starts serving the site.
It takes a minute or two, and you can close the page — it carries on without you and the progress is here when you come back.
If something is already there
You are told the domain is in use, and what is using it. Continuing puts this site live and archives whatever is there now, with one-click restore for 30 days.
This is the path for replacing an existing site, and it is covered properly in its own article. The button is deliberately styled as a destructive action, because it is one.
If this site is already live there
You are told there is nothing to do, with a link to visit the site. This is the answer when you have opened Go Live out of habit on a site that launched weeks ago.
If it is blocked
You are told it cannot be used yet, with the specific reasons listed, and a Check again button.
The usual reason is DNS: either the record is not pointing at us, or proxying is on, or the change has not spread yet. Fix the cause and check again rather than retrying immediately.
If a previous attempt was interrupted
If a run was started and did not finish, you are offered Resume rather than a fresh start.
Take the resume. Restarting a part-finished launch is how you end up in a confusing state; resuming picks up the same run where it stopped.
Result
The site's status becomes live, its card shows the domain as a link, and visitors reaching your domain get your site over a secure connection.
