Get answers to the most common questions about Toast Websites — the difference between Toast Websites and Online Ordering, publishing changes that aren't showing, editing your menu and hours, your domain, sms link preview, and how your site appears in search.
For step-by-step troubleshooting of editor, save, navigation, and search issues, see Get Help With Toast Websites.
Toast Websites FAQ
What is the difference between Toast Websites and Online Ordering Pro?
The difference between Toast Websites and Online Ordering Pro is that Toast Websites is a full website, while Online Ordering is the ordering page guests use to place orders.
Toast Websites is a complete, mobile-friendly website that's professionally designed with customizable branding elements. A website is a set of related web pages located under a single domain name. One of those pages can be an Online Ordering page, but Online Ordering is not included in a Toast Website.
Toast Online Ordering, or Online Ordering Pro, lets your guests place food orders through the internet — by way of a website, mobile app, or other digital platform.
I see a banner that says I still need to bring my online ordering site live. What does it mean?
If you see a banner that says you still need to bring your online ordering site live, it means your online ordering page has not been activated on a URL yet, even though online ordering may already be working elsewhere. Your Toast Website and your online ordering page each need to be brought live before guests can reach them at your web address.
To bring your site live, connect a domain or activate a generic URL from your Website Dashboard. For the steps, see Domains for Toast Websites and Online Ordering Pro.
I published changes to my website, but they aren't showing. How do I fix this?
If you published changes to your website but they aren't showing on the live site, the changes most likely didn't fully publish, or your browser is showing a cached version. Work through these steps in order.
Refresh the live page to load the most recently published version.
Clear your browser cache and cookies, then refresh again. A cached page is the most common reason changes look like they aren't showing.
Make a small change and publish again. For example, add a space after a word, then select Publish. Sometimes a previous publish didn't fully push through.
Confirm the change was published. Always save and publish after editing — changes you save in the editor are not live until you publish them.
If your changes still aren't showing after these steps, contact Toast Customer Care. For the full set of editor and save-error checks, see Get Help With Toast Websites.
Where do I edit the menu items on my website?
You edit the menu items on your website in the menu editor, not in the website editor. Your Toast Website pulls your menu directly from your online ordering menu, so the items, categories, images, pricing, and descriptions you set there flow through to your website.
To change the menu items, prices, or descriptions that appear on your website, in Toast Web go to Menus > Bulk Management > Menu Builder, make your changes, then save and publish your menu. To change how the menu looks on your site — such as the layout or styling — use the website editor instead.
For more on how the menu displays and the Website's View-Only setting, see Get Help With Toast Websites.
How do I update the hours listed on my website?
To update the hours listed on your website, edit them from the footer of a page other than your Online Ordering or Menu page, because the hours editing sidebar doesn't appear on those two pages.
In Toast Web, go to Websites and open Edit Site. From the page drop-down at the top, switch to a different page, such as your About Us page. Scroll to the footer and select All hours. Make your changes, then save and publish.
A third-party company owns or hosts my domain. What do I do?
If a third-party company owns or hosts your domain, you'll need to check whether the domain can be transferred to you before you can connect it to your Toast Website. To transfer a domain away from your current website service, you may need to create an account with a domain registrar and have the domain transferred to that account. Once the transfer is complete, you can connect the domain from within Toast Web. If the domain can't be transferred, you may need to purchase a new one.
For the full transfer and connection steps, see Domains for Toast Websites and Online Ordering Pro.
Why isn't my website showing up higher in search engines?
Your website may not show up higher in search engines because ranking depends on several factors that Google controls, and it can take time for a site to rank and rise in results. Toast Websites come with the back-end technical best practices already in place, but several of the most important factors are within your control.
You can optimize the content of your site so it's unique, valuable, and engaging for visitors arriving from search. You can optimize your title and description tags using the tools on your Website Dashboard. And you can make your site more discoverable by linking to it from your social media profiles and any other web properties you own.
I published my live website, but it isn't showing in Google, or the title and description are wrong. Why?
If you published your live website, but it isn't showing in Google — or the title and description look wrong — it's usually because Google hasn't recrawled your site yet. Once a website is live on a domain, it takes Google some time to reindex it, after which the issue corrects itself.
Crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. You can ask Google to index or recrawl your site sooner using Google's own instructions for asking Google to recrawl your URLs (external link). This is not something Toast Customer Care can do on your behalf.
Why is the wrong Business Title showing in a SMS Link Preview?
If your business name is showing incorrectly within SMS Link Previews, this can be changed from the SEO page. In Toast Web, go to Websites > SEO. Under Business Information, select Edit and change the Title to the correct name. Save changes and Publish.
Why is the wrong image showing in a SMS Link Preview?
The image that appears in the SMS Link Preview pulls from the same image assigned to your Online Ordering page Banner. This image does not pull from any other location on the Website Editor or Restaurant Info page. To change this, work through these steps in order.
In Toast Web, navigate to Websites > Select Edit Site.
In the top middle section of the page, open the Homepage drop-down menu and select Online Ordering.
Select Global > Page Header > select Image under Background options.
Under Banner Image, choose Select Banner Image.
In the Media Gallery, select your image or + Upload Media. Then select Confirm to finalize the process. After completing your edits, select Publish in the top right corner to apply your changes.
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