Knowledge topic

Netlify

45 plain guides, written by Ranjit Bhinge for business owners with no tech team. Each one says what to expect, what it costs where that applies, and what I would do in your place.

My designer sent me a folder of files. How do I actually put it online? A designer handed you HTML, CSS and image files with no hosting. How to publish them live for free with Netlify Drop, and when drag-and-drop isn't enough. 6 min read I need a one-page landing page live today. What's actually fastest? A campaign or event needs a live landing page today, not next week. Real options compared on speed and cost: Netlify Drop, Carrd and Squarespace, and the steps. 6 min read An AI tool built me a website and gave me files. Now what? ChatGPT, Claude or another AI tool generated your website files, but you still need to publish them. How to go from AI-generated code to a live, working site. 6 min read Every website change waits on my developer to upload it by hand. How do I fix that? If every website change waits on a developer, Git-connected automatic deploys remove the bottleneck. How it works, what it costs, and when it's not the fix. 5 min read I don't actually know if I own my own website's code. How do I check? An agency built your site, but you've never seen the code or repository. How to find out who controls it, what to ask for, and why switching hosts won't fix it. 6 min read My team edits content in a headless CMS. How do I make the site update itself? A headless CMS stores your content, but the live site won't know about a change until something triggers a rebuild. How build hooks close that gap, and options. 5 min read How do I actually see a website change before it's live, instead of approving it from a screenshot? Approving website changes from a screenshot means finding mistakes after launch. How Netlify's Deploy Previews give each change a clickable test link first. 5 min read Clients keep requesting edits on a mockup. How do I get approval on the real thing instead? Approving a static mockup misses problems a working page would catch. How to share a password-protected, fully working preview link for real client sign-off. 6 min read I want to try a new price page or listing layout without breaking what's already working. Testing a new pricing page or listing layout on your live site risks customers seeing a broken draft. How branch deploys let you test on a separate URL first. 5 min read An update just broke my website and customers can't order. How do I undo it right now? A broken update is costing you orders. How instant rollbacks restore a working version of your site in seconds, what they fix and don't, and how to avoid it. 5 min read I want to freeze the website during a sale so nobody accidentally pushes a change. How? A sale or launch is the worst time for an unrelated website change to slip through. How deploy locking stops new pushes going live while other work goes on. 5 min read How do I add a quote request form to my website without paying for a form app? How to add a working quote or contact form to a Netlify-hosted site for free: the exact HTML, file upload limits, spam protection, and where submissions go. 5 min read My website form leads get lost in email. How do I fix that? Why website form leads die in a shared inbox, and how to route Netlify form submissions into Slack, a spreadsheet or your CRM instead of relying on email. 6 min read How do I stop spam bots from flooding my contact form? How to stop contact form spam on a Netlify-hosted site: honeypot fields, reCAPTCHA v2, and when a bigger tool like Cloudflare Turnstile is worth adding. 6 min read How do I let customers attach photos to a service request on my website? How to add a working photo-upload field to a Netlify-hosted request form, the real file size limits, and when a plain form stops being the right tool. 6 min read How do I connect my website to a CRM, payment processor or booking tool? How Netlify Functions let your static website talk to a CRM, payment or booking API without your own server, what it costs, and when a no-code connector wins. 5 min read How do I get a report, sync or reminder to run by itself on a schedule? How to run a recurring daily or weekly job, like a report, a price sync or a reminder email, without managing a server, using Netlify's scheduled functions. 5 min read My website times out on slow tasks like PDFs. How do I fix that? Why a website request times out when generating a PDF, processing an upload or running a slow task, and the real fixes, from background functions to queues. 5 min read How do I show different prices, language or phone numbers depending on where a visitor is? How to geo-target website content by visitor country: when a simple redirect rule is enough, and when you need Netlify Edge Functions for live personalization. 5 min read How do I password-protect just one section of my website, not the whole thing? The real options for restricting part of a website to logged-in members or a shared password, from Netlify's built-in site password to a proper login system. 5 min read My old links show errors after a redesign. How do I redirect them without losing my search traffic? How to redirect old URLs to their new location after a site redesign or migration, using Netlify's redirect rules, so you keep search rankings and traffic. 5 min read How do I keep my blog or shop on a subfolder of my main site instead of a separate subdomain? How to proxy a blog, shop or other tool onto a subfolder of your main domain with Netlify's redirect rules, for better SEO than a subdomain, and the risks. 5 min read How do I let customers or tenants log in to see their own documents? How to add a simple login so customers or tenants see their own documents, orders or statements on your site, what Netlify Identity covers, and what it doesn't. 6 min read How do I set up a private, invite-only page for partners or dealers? How to build a private, invite-only page for dealers, partners or wholesale accounts, when one shared password is enough, and when you need per-account logins. 6 min read How do I show a draft website to a client without Google finding it? How to share a draft or staging website with a client privately, without Google indexing it or anyone with the link finding it, and what to check first. 5 min read How do I stop bots and scrapers from copying my listings or price list? What to do when bots or scrapers copy your listings or price list and hit your site hard: the real options, what basic hosting controls catch, and what to add. 6 min read My website says "Not secure." How do I fix it? What the Not secure warning in your browser means, how to fix it with a free SSL certificate, and when to switch hosts versus fixing it where you already are. 5 min read How do I point my domain at a new website without taking down my email? The exact order of operations to switch your domain to a new website host without breaking business email, what MX records are, and how long the change takes. 6 min read How do I manage many domains for branded or per-city websites? How to manage a growing number of domains for per-city or per-brand websites without the DNS and SSL work multiplying by hand each time you add one. 5 min read Where do I store uploaded images or files for a small website? Where to store uploaded images or files on a small website or app, what Netlify Blobs is and its real size limits, and when you need a proper database instead. 5 min read How do I store small bits of data without running a full database? How to build a simple counter, voting list or cache without setting up and managing a real database, using a key-value store, and when you've outgrown it. 6 min read What's the best managed database option for a custom business app? The real options for a managed database behind a custom app when nobody can run servers, what a platform database like Netlify's offers, and when to skip it. 5 min read How do I test app changes without risking my live customer data? How to test a new feature or change to your app with no risk to real customer data, using automatic database branching, and what to check on privacy first. 6 min read How do I make small website edits with AI instead of paying a developer every time? How Netlify's Agent Runners lets you describe a website edit in plain English and get a working preview back, what it costs, and when you need a developer. 7 min read Why did my Netlify deploy fail, and how do I actually read the error? A practical walkthrough of reading a failed Netlify build log, the most common real causes, and what to do when an AI-built site specifically won't deploy. 5 min read I built something in an AI chat tool. How do I get it live under my own domain? How to take something you built in Claude, ChatGPT or another AI coding tool and deploy it live on Netlify under your own company domain, step by step. 5 min read How do I add an AI chatbot to my site without managing my own API keys? How Netlify's AI Gateway lets your website call AI models with no OpenAI or Anthropic account to manage, what it costs, and who should build versus buy. 5 min read Orders fail halfway when another system is down. How do I actually fix this? Why orders and leads silently fail halfway when a payment processor, shipping API or CRM is briefly down, and how a retry-on-failure background job fixes it. 5 min read How do I send an automatic follow-up a few days after I quote someone? Why a timed follow-up after a quote matters, when your CRM already handles it, and when it needs a custom-built delayed job instead. 5 min read My property or product photos are huge and the site loads slowly on phones. How do I fix this? How Netlify's Image CDN resizes and compresses images on demand with no change to your source files, and when a dedicated tool like Cloudinary fits better. 5 min read How do I find out my site is slow or down before a customer tells me? What Netlify's own dashboards for traffic, speed and errors show you, what they don't (uptime monitoring), and the separate free tool that fills the gap. 5 min read How do I let a content editor preview changes on the real site design before publishing? What a Netlify Preview Server actually is, how it differs from your CMS's own preview, its real usage limits, and when a normal CMS preview is simpler. 5 min read How do I test two versions of a landing page to see which gets more leads? Netlify's split testing is closed to new projects as of August 2026. What that means, and which dedicated A/B testing tool or manual method to use instead. 5 min read How do I get a Slack alert when my site updates or a build fails? How to install Netlify's Slack extension from the dashboard to get deploy and build-failure alerts in your team's channel, no code required. 5 min read How do I give a freelancer or client access to my website host without handing over everything? Netlify's team roles (Owner, Developer, Reviewer, Publisher) explained, what's free versus paid, and why a shared password is the wrong way to do this. 5 min read

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