A standalone help center is your Knowledge Base hosted as its own public site — a clean, branded place your customers can visit, search, and browse without logging in. From the Publishing tab you choose a web address, apply your branding, decide which categories appear, and publish. A live preview on the right shows exactly how the site will look as you work.
How to publish a standalone help center
Open Knowledge Base → Publishing (the Publishing - Standalone tab). Here's the full path, from a blank slate to a live site.
1. Open the Publishing tab
Everything you configure on the left updates instantly in the live preview on the right, so you can see your changes land in real time. Use the Home and Article tabs above the preview to check both the landing page and an article page.
2. Set your site address
Click the pencil next to the site address, type a subdomain, and save it. Your help center will live at that address on CornerSpot's hosting (for example your-name.docs.cornerspot.net). CornerSpot checks availability as you type.
3. Add your branding
Enter your company name and pick a brand color. You can also upload a logo and favicon. Watch the live preview pick up your colors and name immediately, so you can dial in the look before anyone sees it.
4. Tune the article page
Decide what shows on each article page with a set of toggles: a table of contents, breadcrumbs, the last-updated date, a "Was this helpful?" prompt, related articles, previous/next navigation, and a share link. Turn on what your readers need and leave the rest off.
5. Choose which categories to publish
Use the Categories to publish checklist to control exactly which categories (and sub-categories) appear on your standalone site. This lets you keep some content internal while publishing the rest — the tally shows how many of your categories are visible.
6. Publish your site
When everything looks right, click Publish site. CornerSpot builds your help center and deploys it; the status pill moves to Publishing… while the build runs, then to Published once it's live. From then on, your site is reachable at your address — a real, public help center like help.cornerspot.net.
7. Watch it go live
While the build runs, the pill shows Publishing…. Once it finishes, the status reads Published with a link you can copy or open. Make a change later? Edit any setting, and the pill prompts you to Publish changes to push the update. You can also Unpublish to take the site offline at any time.
Using a custom domain
Want the help center on your own domain instead of a CornerSpot subdomain? Add a custom domain (for example help.yourcompany.com) in the site-address section. CornerSpot will show you the DNS records to add at your domain registrar; once those records resolve, it verifies the domain automatically and serves your site there with HTTPS. DNS changes can take a little time to propagate, so the verification may not be instant.
What your visitors get
- A branded, searchable site: your logo, colors, and company name on a fast public help center with full-text search.
- One source of truth: the same articles power your standalone site, embedded widgets, and the Members portal — write once, publish everywhere.
- Control over what's shown: publish only the categories you choose, and tune each article page to taste.
- Easy updates: change a setting or an article, then click Publish changes to roll it out.
Tips for a polished launch
- Pick a clear subdomain (or custom domain) that matches your brand so the address is easy to share.
- Use the live preview Home and Article tabs to check both layouts before you publish.
- Only publish categories that are ready — keep work-in-progress content as drafts or unpublished categories.
- After publishing, open the live URL and run a quick search to confirm everything looks right to your visitors.