---
title: "Manage sites"
slug: "manage-sites"
abstract: "Manage sites settings, delete a site, manage languages and localization, and delete a site."
---
# Manage sites

In **Channels**, you can manage site settings by clicking **Options** > **Settings** for the desired site.

![Access the settings for a site in Channels.](https://doc.sitecore.com/api/markdown-image/sai/en/users/sitecoreai/images/sites-tile-actions1.png)

In the **Settings** tab, you can:

- Manage **General** site settings, such as the site name and thumbnail.
- Define the **Site host** by specifying a specific homepage, a default language, and various hostnames for the site.
- [Delete](https://doc.sitecore.com/sai/en/users/sitecoreai/create-and-manage-sites/manage-sites.html#UUID-573cc3fc-ab88-ce55-c2c1-73acef232445_section-idm1763450722375478 "Delete a site") the site.

> [!note]
> To create and manage sites and site collections, you must have [the *Admin* or the *Sitecore Client Site Managing* role](https://doc.sitecore.com/xmc/en/developers/xm-cloud/en/the-security-roles.html). Contact your system administrator to [request the access rights](https://doc.sitecore.com/xmc/en/developers/xm-cloud/en/assign-access-rights-to-a-security-account.html) as needed.

## Manage general site settings

You can manage site settings by clicking **Options** > **Settings** for the desired site. Additional settings, such as languages and hosts, are handled at the [site host](https://doc.sitecore.com/sai/en/users/sitecoreai/create-and-manage-sites/manage-sites.html#UUID-573cc3fc-ab88-ce55-c2c1-73acef232445_section-idm234507300031205 "Manage hosts") level.

In the general settings, you can manage basic site information such as:

- **Name** and **Description**.
- **System name** - used for underlying folders and back-end processes.
- **Thumbnail** - this is generated automatically from the homepage. To create a custom thumbnail, you can click **Upload** to upload a `PNG` or `JPG` image that you can crop and zoom as needed.

    ![Upload a thumbnail manually for a website.](https://doc.sitecore.com/api/markdown-image/sai/en/users/sitecoreai/images/sites-upload-thumbnail.png)

## Manage hosts

To be published online, each site must be given at least one hostname, and it must be assigned a front-end application used to display it to your audience.

To manage site hosts:

1. In the left hand pane, click **Site hosts**.
2. In the site hosts table, click the name of the site host.
3. In the settings tab, you can manage the following:
    - **Name** of the site host. This is usually the same system name as the original site.

        > [!warning]
        > It is possible to edit this site host name, but doing so for a published site might break the live website.

    - **Default language** for the site host. In the drop-down list, click the language you want to use as default for this site host. The list contains all languages and locales that are enabled for the environment.
    - **Language embedding**. If you select this option, the 2-digit code of the default language for the site will be added to the hostname in the URL. Here's an example *en* indicates that the language is English: *https://example.com/en/about-us*.

        > [!note]
        > This parameter enforces language embedding for a given site, no matter what settings are specified in other places, for example, in the `languageEmbedding` setting on the localizedProvider, or in the `languageEmbedding` setting on the urlBuilder.

    - **Homepage** of the site, which is the page the site visitors will see when accessing the hostname URL.
    - **Hostname**, which is the URL that the site resolves to when accessed by website visitors, as defined in your front-end hosting service. You can add several hostnames for the same site.
    - **Target hostname** is the unique hostname that you want to use for generating URLs for pages, links, and sitemaps. It is needed for generating sitemaps for your live sites.

        > [!warning]
        > A site can have multiple site hosts as long as they share the same target hostame.
        >
        > Using "\*" in the target hostname causes errors during publishing.

    - **Editing host**, where you choose the front-end application that is used for render the site in the editing interface like Pages. You can use the default provided by Sitecore, and change it later.
    - **Other properties** fields can be used by a developer to customize the site by adding [additional attributes](https://doc.sitecore.com/xmc/en/developers/xm-cloud/en/the-site-host-fields.html) as key-value pairs.

## Delete a site

If you delete a website, it will no longer be accessible to any users. All the following associated items will also be deleted:

- Pages
- Settings
- Media files
- Data sources
- Presentation elements
- Dictionaries
- Components, variants, and page designs

Deleting a site may affect related websites in the collection. If the site [shares](https://doc.sitecore.com/xp/en/users/sxa/104/sitecore-experience-accelerator/share-data-sources-and-presentation-using-the-multisite-feature-1064970.html) items with other sites, this might result in broken links. Items that are cloned to other sites are turned into regular items, and the links removed.

To delete a site:

1. In the general settings, in the **Danger zone** section, click **Delete site**.
2. In the warning dialog, enter the name of the website and click **Delete**. The website is deleted and removed from the environment.