Publishing: drafts, versions, scheduling & translations
Every post you write in Steeren moves through a small set of states, and publishing is the moment it actually goes live on your public site. This guide walks you through the whole journey: how a post goes from draft to published, how to roll back to an earlier version, how to schedule a post for later, and how to publish the same post in more than one language.
The states a post moves through
As you work on a post, it sits in one of these states. You can see the current state on the post and in your post list.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Idea | A placeholder with no real content yet - a starting point you (or Steeren) can flesh out later. |
| Draft | Editable and not public. This is where most of your writing and editing happens. |
| Review | Written and waiting for a human to read it before it goes out. |
| Scheduled | Set to publish automatically at a time you chose. |
| Published | Live on your public site. |
| Archived | Retired and not public, but kept around in case you want it back. |
The one rule to remember: publishing is always a deliberate click. Steeren never puts a post live on its own. If you ask Steeren to write a post for you, it lands as a draft (or moves to review) - you read it, then you decide when it goes live.
You can freely move a post between idea, draft, review, and archived as you work. Going live (or scheduling to go live) is the one step that's a clear, separate action - so you always know exactly when something becomes public.
Publishing a post
When you publish, your post goes live and Steeren also saves a snapshot of it as it stands right now. That snapshot is what your readers see.
The key thing this buys you: once a post is published, editing it doesn't change the live version. Your readers keep seeing the last published snapshot while you tinker. When you're happy with your changes, you publish again and the new version replaces the old one for readers. Until then, your edits are private to your draft. When you have unpublished changes waiting, the button reads Republish so you know there's something new to push out.
Every time you publish you create a new version, and old versions are kept - publish, edit, republish, and both versions stay in your history. Nothing is overwritten, so you can always go back.
When you publish, you can add a short change note (for example, "Added Q2 numbers"). It's optional, and it shows up in the post's history so you and your teammates can see at a glance what each version changed.
[!WARNING] If a post contains an interactive widget that's still being generated, publishing waits until it's ready. This is on purpose - it stops a half-built "generating..." widget from being frozen into the live page. Give the widget a moment to finish, then publish. If one looks stuck, regenerate it and try again.
Taking a post offline
Unpublishing takes a post off your public site and moves it back to draft. It happens immediately, and your version history is kept - nothing is deleted. Use this when you want to pull something down without losing your work.
[!NOTE] The post stops being served right away. The page a visitor sees can lag briefly if your site caches pages - most sites refresh within their normal cache window. If you host your own site, make sure it's wired up to receive Steeren's update signal so changes (including taking a post down) show up promptly instead of waiting for the cache to expire.
Going back to an earlier version
Every time you publish, Steeren records that version. You can browse your version history, look at any past version in full, and restore one.
Restoring brings an earlier version's content back into your draft - the title, body, excerpt, images, embedded elements, and SEO all come back exactly as they were. A good way to work:
- Open the post's history and find the version you want.
- Preview it to be sure it's the one.
- Restore it - your draft now matches that older version.
- Publish to put it live again.
[!IMPORTANT] Restoring doesn't republish on its own. After you restore, the post is a draft and goes offline until you publish again - so you stay in control of exactly when readers see the change. Restoring also doesn't erase anything: restore an older version, publish, and that becomes your newest version, with all the in-between versions still in your history.
Scheduling a post for later
Instead of publishing right now, you can pick a future date and time, and Steeren will publish the post for you then. Choose the moment you want it to go live, and the post moves to Scheduled. Nothing is public until that time arrives.
[!NOTE] Scheduled posts publish at the time you set, give or take a few minutes - Steeren checks for due posts on a short, regular cycle. Schedule something for 9:00 and it'll go live within a few minutes of 9:00, not down to the exact second.
A few practical things to know:
- The same safeguards apply. A scheduled publish goes through the same checks as a manual one - so if an interactive widget is still generating at the scheduled time, that publish waits until the widget is ready.
- If a post can't publish, it keeps trying. A post stuck because of an unfinished widget will keep attempting on each cycle rather than giving up. If a scheduled post never goes live, open it and fix or regenerate the widget that's holding it up - or move it back to draft.
- To cancel a scheduled publish, just move the post back to draft. It won't go live until you schedule or publish it again.
Translations
You can publish the same post in more than one language. Each translation is its own post in another language, linked to the original as a language sibling. Steeren uses these links to show a language switcher and to tell search engines which version to serve to which reader.
To translate a post, choose the target language and Steeren creates a translated sibling for you. It starts as a draft and inherits the original's folder, campaign, author, and cover image, so both languages share the same hero image. Steeren then translates the title, body, excerpt, SEO, and the URL slug, and translates the user-facing text in any embedded elements (links, images, charts, and data are carried over unchanged). Interactive widgets are rebuilt in the new language so they read naturally rather than carrying over the original wording.
Your sources and citations are shared across all languages - the links behind your citations don't change when you translate the words around them, so there's nothing to re-translate there.
To see every language version of a post, open its translations - you'll get the full set of siblings, including the post you started from.
What to expect with translations
| Rule | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| One post per language | Each language group holds a single post per language. You can't have two German versions in the same group. |
| No translating into the same language | You can't translate a post into the language it's already in. |
| Each translation publishes on its own | Every translation is a full post with its own draft, its own status, and its own publish step. Publishing the English version does not publish the German one - you review and publish each language yourself. |
| Re-translating picks up your latest edits | If you translate again later, Steeren works from the most recently updated version, so your newest changes carry through. |
| Region variants work | You can use either a plain language code (like de) or a region-specific one (like de-DE). |
Readers are matched to the right language automatically, with a little flexibility: someone set to de gets a de, de-DE, de-AT, or de-CH version, while an exact code like en-US matches exactly.
[!TIP] You can steer translation quality. Add a glossary and per-language style rules in your Context workspace, and Steeren applies them to every translation - so your brand terms and tone stay consistent across languages. Both are optional; without them, translations still work fine.
What happens when you publish
Publishing does a couple of helpful things in the background. Neither one blocks you, and if either hiccups, your post still goes live.
It nudges search engines. Steeren lets search engines know there's a fresh URL to crawl, using IndexNow and a Google Search Console sitemap submission. This only works once you've connected and verified a custom domain - without one, there's nowhere to send the nudge, and you'll see that attempt marked as skipped in your audit log. Your post is live either way.
It keeps Steeren's writing assistant in the loop. Publishing files a copy of the post into your Context workspace so that when you (or Steeren) draft something new, it can tell whether you've already covered the topic. Your post is always the editable source of truth; this copy is just a searchable index. Unpublishing updates that copy so the post drops out of those "have we written this already?" checks.
FAQ
Does editing a published post change what readers see? No. Readers stay on the last version you published. Your edits live in your draft until you republish - the button reads Republish once you have changes waiting.
Can I undo a publish? Yes. Unpublishing takes the post offline and moves it back to draft, keeping all your history. To go back to an earlier content version, restore that version onto your draft, then publish.
Why is my published post showing a "not found" page? Most often it was unpublished, or you restored an earlier version (which drops the post back to draft). Check the post's state and republish if needed. Also make sure you're looking at the right language - a German link won't show the English post.
My post didn't publish at the exact scheduled minute. Is something wrong? Probably not. Steeren publishes scheduled posts within a few minutes of the time you set, not to the exact second. If it's much later than that, check whether an interactive widget was still generating - that holds up the publish until it's ready (or until you move the post back to draft).
If I translate a post, do I publish each language separately? Yes. Each translation is its own post with its own status and publish step. Translating creates a draft in the new language; you review and publish it on its own.
Do translations share citations? Yes - your sources and citations are shared across all languages, because the links behind them don't change when you translate the text. Embedded elements like callouts and widgets are translated per language.