Because it is running on your computer, not on the internet. A site open in your builder or on your own machine is private to you; others cannot reach your laptop. To let anyone visit, it has to be deployed to a public host and given a domain. Until then, only you can see it.
Information current as at 5 July 2026
You send a friend the link, and they see nothing while it works perfectly for you. This is one of the most common early confusions, and it comes from a single misunderstanding about where your site is actually running. Clear that up and the fix is obvious.
When a site works for you but no one else, it is almost always running locally, meaning on your own computer or inside a builder's private preview that only your session can see. Your laptop is not on the public internet in a way strangers can reach; it has no permanent public address, and it is not built to accept visitors. So the site genuinely exists, but only in a place the rest of the world cannot get to. The link that works for you is pointing at your machine or your private session, not at a public server.
There are two worlds. Local is your workspace: fast, private, perfect for building and testing, invisible to everyone else. Live is the public internet: a site sitting on an always-on host at a real address that anyone can visit. Building happens local; launching moves it live. The confusion arises because both look identical in your browser, so it is easy to forget which one you are looking at. The test is simple: if the address says localhost, or it is a builder preview only you are logged into, it is local, and no amount of sharing that link will let others in.
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
Sometimes you share a link from the builder itself and it still does not work for a friend. That is usually because the preview is tied to your account or a temporary session, so it either asks them to log in, expires, or simply refuses. Preview links are meant for you to check your work, not to serve the public. They are not a substitute for deploying. If you need one other person to see it quickly, some builders offer a shareable preview, but for anything real, the answer is to deploy properly rather than lean on a preview.
To let anyone visit, the site has to be deployed to a public host and, ideally, given your own domain. That is the whole resolution: move it from local to live. Once it is on a real host, you get a public address that works for everyone, everywhere, regardless of whether your computer is even on. If you have already deployed and others still cannot see it, then the cause shifts to DNS, the domain has not finished connecting, which is a different, patience-based fix. But the first question is always: is this thing actually live, or is it still only on my machine?
If you have made something and it needs to become real, send it over. We will tell you honestly what it needs to be live, safe and yours, whether that is a quick fix you can do or a proper build. No obligation.
Whether you can name exactly what you want built, or you just know something is leaking, the next step is the same conversation.