Frequently asked questions

A free tool that gives you a link to your website as it runs on a different server, usually a new host, before you change DNS. Anyone with the link can browse the site on any device.

No. Anyone can create a preview that lasts 3 days. A free account gives you:

• Links that last up to 30 days
• A dashboard of all your previews
• Extend, pause, label and delete the links you create while signed in
• Warnings when a preview's homepage returns an error or its server stops answering

3 days by default, or 1 to 30 days if you're signed in. Expired links stop working and are deleted automatically. To keep going after that, create a new one.

Yes. That's what it's for. Anyone with the link can open it without an account, so only share it with people you trust to see the site.

Yes. The link works in any browser on any device, with no setup. You can also scan the QR code on the results page.

Your new host usually shows it in the control panel (look for "Shared IP", "Server IP" or "Dedicated IP") or in the welcome email. If you're not sure, ask your host's support team. Or skip it: enter your new host's nameserver instead and we'll look it up.

The step-by-step guide shows where to look, and walks through the rest of the process.

Your new host's, such as ns1.example.net. It's in the welcome email or control panel, and it's the nameserver you'll point your domain at when you go live. It knows your new server's address as soon as your host has set the domain up, even though the rest of the internet still points at the old one.

The field starts as our own nameserver, so if you're moving to us, leave it as it is. If you see "We couldn't find this domain on …", the domain may not be set up on the new host yet, or the nameserver is wrong.

A hosts file entry only works on the computer you edit it on, needs admin rights, doesn't work on most phones, and is easy to forget to remove. A preview link works everywhere and can be shared.

The one advantage of a hosts file is that everything, including admin logins and payment flows, behaves exactly as it will when you go live.

Your preview's results page gives you the exact line to add (under "Hosts-file fallback"): on macOS and Linux it goes in /etc/hosts, edited with sudo; on Windows in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts, edited as administrator. Then flush your DNS cache or restart your browser, and remove the line when you're done.

Yes. We accept self-signed, expired and mismatched certificates, because a server that isn't live yet often has one of these. If the server doesn't answer on HTTPS at all, we connect over HTTP. Your preview link itself always uses HTTPS.

Admin areas often check that requests come from the exact domain, or set security cookies that don't carry over to the preview address. Use the preview to check the public site, and log in to admin areas directly on the new server: with a temporary URL from your host, or by pointing your own computer at the new server with a hosts-file entry (your results page gives you the line to add).

Files loaded from other domains, such as a CDN, an image service or a font provider, still come from their usual location, not your new server. Files built from URLs in unusual ways in JavaScript may not be rewritten either. If something is missing, tell us which page it was on.

Forms that post back to your own site, including file uploads, usually work. Payment gateways and single sign-on redirect to other services and back to your real domain, so they won't complete inside a preview.

Enter the IP address of your origin server (the new host), not a Cloudflare or CDN address. The preview connects straight to that server.

Public DNS already sends visitors to that server, so you can visit the site directly. If you've only just changed DNS, the change may not have reached you yet.

We don't create previews of major platforms such as Google, Microsoft, PayPal or social networks, or of private and internal network addresses. This protects everyone from misuse. If you think your site was rejected by mistake, contact us.

No. Every preview link tells search engines not to crawl it, and links expire automatically.

Preview links use random codes and aren't listed anywhere. But anyone you share a link with, or who sees it, can open it.

We keep the domain, server IP and expiry for each preview until it expires. Server logs record the pages requested through previews for troubleshooting and abuse prevention, and are kept for 14 days. We don't add tracking of any kind to your previews. See our privacy policy.

Signed in: delete it from your dashboard. Created without an account: contact us with the preview link and we'll remove it.

Use the Report abuse page with the preview link. We can disable a preview immediately.