About your public Catalog

Your public Catalog is one page anybody can open without signing in, showing what your business offers. Its address is /explore/ followed by your workspace's short name.

What a visitor gets

The page opens on your business name, your banner and the title you chose. Under it are the types you've put on show — services, products, memberships, whatever you sell — and within a type, the collections you group them into. Visitors can search, and sort by Featured, price, or name.

Every item has its own page with its pictures and video, its description, its FAQs and the buttons you gave it. Items you sell also carry a price, an add-to-cart and a checkout. Items you don't sell are there to be read and acted on.

Each item page has its own link you can send to anyone. When that link is pasted into a chat, the preview carries the item's name, picture and price.

Two switches decide what shows

An item is public only when both of these are true:

``text It has a published version → set on the item, by publishing it It can be shown to customers → set on the item, under Public Catalog ``

Publishing an item does not put it on your Catalog. Placing it does not make an unpublished item appear. And both of those sit under a third switch — the whole Catalog has to be turned on, with the item's type shown, before any of it reaches a visitor.

Three levels, in order

``text Public Catalog off → nobody sees anything Type not shown → none of that type's items appear Item hidden → that one item is missing ``

Set the first two in Catalog → Public Catalog settings. The third is on the item itself.

Shown in Catalog and only by direct link

An item set to Shown in Catalog appears in the listing for visitors who are allowed to see it. Only by direct link gives it a working page that isn't in the listing and asks search engines to leave it out. Use that choice when you want to send someone the item's link.

What it doesn't decide

Catalog visibility gets an item onto the page. Who is then allowed to see it, and what they may do there, is a separate question — an item meant for customers stays hidden from a visitor who isn't one, even when it's Shown in Catalog.

Related

• Set up your public Catalog
• Put an item on your public Catalog
• Why an item isn't showing on your Catalog
• Who can see and hold a Catalog item
• Customer actions on a Catalog item