HubSpot Ideas

annaishizeki

Schedule website/landing page updates without unpublishing the page

It would be great if we could have a way to schedule website/landing page updates without unpublishing the page until the time set to update/publish.

 

For example, currently when we publish a page, make changes, and then schedule a time for the changes to be updated/published, the page will be unpublished until the scheduled time. 

 

Ideally we should be able to make edits to a page, schedule the update/publish, publish the changes when the time comes, and keep the page live the whole time

 

(Submitted on behalf of a customer) 

60 Replies
breichenbach
HubSpot Product Team

I agree that this could be a very helpful feature. In my opinion, I think that this could likely be best implemented by enhancing our current content staging functionality, but if the general consensus is that this feature would be preferred in the Page Editor Publishing tab, definitely let me know. 

 

While this idea is not yet in planning, I did want to drop a note to let you know that this is on our radar and I will update this post with more details as they become available (so, prayers have been answered). 

NGV-Jackie
Participant

Hello @breichenbach - Thanks for the response and info!

 

I believe we're all feeling the frustration of updates performed via the "Schedule" option on the Page Editor. If you schedule an update the Page Editor pulls the live page down, rather than leaving it in place until the update goes live. I would find the option to keep the current page live while awaiting a scheduled update really useful and intiutive.

 

Please keep us posted if this idea gets to dev. 🙂

susandoucet
Member

I agree with the previously made comments. An "update schedule date" option that makes your page unavailable for the interim period before the update date/time is counterintuitive to how I would expect this to function. Ideally, the page would stay live as is and then update with the scheduled changes at the intended time.

ben-duchy
Top Contributor

Without wanting to repeat what everyone has already said... but come on HubSpot why have you not done this already?? This is now becoming a priority for my employer and I for one am getting fed up of updating the website outside working hours 😞

mbinmasoud
Contributor

Up vote from me as well.

 

My company is currently running a "12 Days of Christmas" promo where every day we have a new set of products on special. This requires us to update our "Today's Deals" daily to refresh the products. 

 

We've been forced to make the updates manually every morning when would *rather* have it happen at midnight. This is also forcing us to now deliver ads to the page until the manual update has occurred in the morning. 

 

Simply put: it's painful. 

 

NGV-Jackie
Participant

I wanted to mention this update. Since submitting the update scheduling issue to HubSpot, my team and I have started using the Content Staging functionality whenever making updates, rather than in the Page Editor. 

 

Access Content Staging in Website Pages or Landing Pages side navigationAccess Content Staging in Website Pages or Landing Pages side navigation

It's been really helpful for several reasons: 

  • We are able to overwrite existing pages seamlessly
  • I can share a staged page for review before publishing to the live domain
  • If needed, there is a revision history that we can revert to

However, even within the Content Staging area I cannot seem to schedule pages to publish at a later time. Is there something I am missing?

mbinmasoud
Contributor

@NGV-Jackie 

 

I had no idea that feature even existed! I guess I should have taken more courses. The feature is really helpful for the exact reasons you stated. That said, I'll echo your statement/question: Had there been a schedule option for the staged content rather than "publish now" only, my problem would've been solved!

 

contentstaging.png 

ben-duchy
Top Contributor

@NGV-Jackie, I didn't realise that existied either! Instead I've been making changes then sending a preview link for signoff before publishing. I then revert back to the previous version if the updated page is not signed off.

 

@mbinmasoud I feel your pain, I too have to promote offers with an expiry date which often ends outside working hours. However there is 1 work around which I use....

 

Step 1: Create a new page (or clone the one you want to make changes to).

Step 2: Either push it live straight away or schedule it to go live at a set date as long as its live before the existing page is unpublished (see step 3).

Step 3: Schedule the page to unpublish when the offer ends and redirect users to the updated page

Step 4: Once all promotions are finished, publish the original page again and unpublish any offer versions of the same page and remove all redirects

 

 

schedule-pages.png

mbinmasoud
Contributor

@ben-duchy I thought of doing that! My only concern was that by the end of the promo there will potentially be many sequential redirects (redirecting to a page that redirects, etc).

 

I say this because we have all of our Google and Facebook Ads pointing to the original page. We had to push them a week or so ago for approval purposes. From our experience, it can be a risk to update them during busier times. 

 

Should I not be concerned? 

ben-duchy
Top Contributor

@mbinmasoud thats a valid point. Multiple redirects is a big no-no for Google. It could actually have a negative impact on your SEO.

 

Where possible try and keep any additional page to a minimum and update each with the relevant offer, whilst updating the redirect between the 2 for example:

 

Day 1: Page A  >> Day2: Page B  >>  Day 3: back to Page A (updated)  >>  Day 4: back to Page B (updated)

 

Not ideal, but could be a short term solution. Does that makes sense?

KeyWestScott
Key Advisor

Agreed about the SEO hit, for doing this...

 

I'm guessing that HS will never get around to this.  Given that this has been here for almost 3 years and never a message from anyone at HS.

 

Seems incredible that I can schedule my air conditioning to kick in at a certain time, but not a webpage....

 

Scott

mike-ward
Key Advisor

@ben-duchy that's a clever workaround that may be appropriate for some situations. Thanks for sharing!

 

Have to echo the prevailing thought here - it's very frustrating that this functionality is not available, especially after all this time.

AndrewPSE
Member

Would also love to see this implemented please 🙏

Heide
Member

(@Ben-duchy, I think that may be almost exactly what I need! Thanks!)

 

Yes, please! This would be such an improvement. Our use case: We hold a monthly webinar. Users can register on the site and then come back X days later (after the webinar) to view the materials (recordings, etc.) ... We want to be able to have the registration page (or form on the page) be active until X-minus-Y time, then at X time, redirect to the collateral page for the webinar.  Something to that effect, anyway. Don't need it to be relative; just a strict scheduling tool would be perfect. Please!!!

mike-ward
Key Advisor

@Heide I think there's already the functionality you need for that use-case, although I may have misunderstood.

 

  1. Create your registration page as normal
  2. Set the registration page expiry date and time (probably to be the start time of the webinar)
    expire-page-hs.png
  3. You can redirect people to the landing page for the on-demand webinar, although obviously it won't be available at this point. Create and publish a page that has a holding section that says "Recording coming soon!" including a form to let visitors be notified by email when the recording will be published, handled through a simple workflow. You can also promote other previous webinars in the meantime that people may be interested in.
  4. Once your recording is edited and available, add that onto the on-demand page and hide the 'Coming Soon' part and form.

With templates for the pages, email and workflow, it should be a pretty straightforward process to manage.

 

Hope that helps, and if I've totally misunderstood, well, just ignore 😄

Heide
Member

Thanks, @mike-ward!!! That sounds like a perfect strategy!

mike-ward
Key Advisor

You're welcome @Heide! If you have any questions, feel free to send me a direct message. 

tgr3gory
Participant

Here it is 2020 and still no movement on this? REALLY frustrated this is not an option...

This seems like a total no brainer and I was shocked when I realized I was not able to do this.

Come on Hubspot... This seems like CMS 101.

Snaedis
HubSpot Product Team

Hi everyone,

 

Thank you all for submitting your feedback and sharing your use cases! I'm really sorry that many of you are needing to wake up at all hours of the night to make updates to your content Smiley Sad I'm looking into this (and some other content management types of changes) with my team and I will update this idea when I know more. 

 

- Snaedis 

JPullan
Contributor

For any Investor Relation pages this would be very helpful for. As a listed company my employer is legally obliged to publish trading updates at specific and often, anti-social times. I am then obliged to schedule alarms for those times to update the page