Create a public link for a document
Turn an internal document into a public link, with later edits carried over automatically.
Publishing
Publish, at the top right of the page
Choose Publish in the ⋯ menu at the top right of a wiki page to open the publish dialog. If the page has subpages you can tick 'Publish N subpages too', and turning off 'Show author' (on by default) keeps the author's name off the public page. Press Publish in the confirmation dialog to go live.
The public URL
Once published, the dialog shows the public address with buttons to copy it or open it in a new tab. The address is /p/ followed by an automatically generated random 8-character string, so you can't choose it yourself. A published page opens without signing in, and it is server-rendered, so search engine and social previews work immediately.
Re-publishing and edits
Edits to the body reach the public page automatically (caching can add up to about a minute). If you unpublish and publish again, the same address comes back, so links you already shared don't break.
Security & blocking
- Back to private — Unpublish in the same dialog makes it private again; the content stays, the address you shared stops opening, and subpages published along with it are unpublished too
- Excessive access blocked — abnormally heavy request volume is throttled automatically
- Hard-to-guess address — an automatically issued random 8-character string
- Cache — edit the document and the public page switches to the new content automatically (within about a minute)
- Page mentions — a mention of a page that is published too becomes a link, while a mention of a private page shows as plain text
- Moving pages — moving a page that was published with its parent tree out of that tree unpublishes it automatically
Previews and search
A public page shows its icon and title, the author's name (no profile photo is shown), reading time, published and updated dates, a table of contents, and a share button. When you share the link, the preview is built from the title and the start of the body. Search engines can index public pages, so check first that there is nothing sensitive in them.