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Service and location pages from a dataset

A contractor offers twelve services and works in eight towns. Each one deserves its own page: something to link from the home page, a title and description written for search, and an address worth sharing, like /services/kitchen-remodeling. Building twenty pages by hand means twenty pages to keep in step every time the design changes.

Record pages solve it with one design. You keep the services in a dataset, design one page, and mark it as the dataset's record template. Every record then has its own page, built from that one design, filled in with that record's values. Change the design once and every page changes; add a record and its page exists.

This guide builds a services section end to end: the dataset, the template, the listing page that links to each service, and what search engines see.

Plan availability

Starter and above, the plans with datasets. Record pages don't count toward your plan's pages: the template is one design, and the pages it serves are bounded by your dataset limits instead.

1. Model the data​

On the Data page, create a dataset called Services and give it the fields a service page shows. For example:

FieldTypeUsed for
NameTextThe page heading and its name in the browser tab
SummaryTextThe intro paragraph, and the search description
PhotoTextThe hero image (a media library image or a URL)
CategoryTextGrouping related services
Page addressPage addressThe service's own segment of its address

The Page address field is what gives each record a page. Its type is Page address, and its values are lowercase words joined by hyphens: kitchen-remodeling, roof-repair. You can type each one, but you don't have to. Set the field's Fill in from to the Name field, and every record gets an address made from its name when it's added. A record keeps its address when it's renamed, so a live URL never moves under someone who bookmarked it.

Already have records? The record template settings below can add the field for you and give every existing record an address in one step.

Add a record per service. Make sure the dataset is shared with the site that will show it (Sharing on the dataset); a site only serves records of datasets shared with it.

2. Design the template​

Create a page for the design. Its own name and address don't matter much, because once it's a template it no longer answers at its own address. Design it like any page. Wherever a record's value belongs, write {{item.field}}, the same tokens a repeat uses:

  • a heading of {{item.name}}
  • a paragraph of {{item.summary}}
  • an image whose source is {{item.photo}}
  • a reference goes one hop further: {{item.crew_lead.name}}

A repeat on the template can list the routed record's neighbors. A Stack that repeats over Services with the filter category == {{item.category}} lists the other services in the same category. The filter fills in from the page's record, and the copies fill in from their own rows.

3. Make it the record template​

Open Page Properties (Properties, at the left of the Besigner toolbar, or File ▸ Page Properties) and scroll to Record pages:

  1. Dataset: pick Services. Only datasets shared with this site are listed.
  2. Address: the path the pages live under, such as services. Nested paths work too, like services/residential. Each record's page is the address plus its page address: /services/kitchen-remodeling.
  3. Page address field: picked for you when the dataset has one. If it has none, choose a text field under Make addresses from and press Make addresses. Every record gets one, made unique where two names collide (roofing, roofing-2).
  4. Optionally, choose where each page's name, search title, search description and sharing image come from. Anything left on its default uses this page's own setting, then the site's.
  5. Press Serve record pages. The first time, you're asked to confirm that the page becomes a template: it stops answering at its own address and no longer counts toward your plan's pages.

Publish the template as you would any page. Record pages serve the published version of the design.

Preview with picks the record the canvas draws the template for, so you design against real content instead of {{item.name}} placeholders. Switch records to check a long name or a missing photo.

On your Services listing page (an ordinary page at /services, say), repeat a card over the Services dataset. Each repeated row carries its record's page as {{item.url}}, so a button or link with the address {{item.url}} goes to that service's page. The canvas previews the real links.

If the dataset has a field of its own called url, {{item.url}} keeps meaning that field.

What visitors and search engines get​

  • One page per record at /services/{page address}. An address no record holds is the site's 404, and so is the template's own address.
  • The head names the record. The tab title is the record's name followed by the site's title, or its search title exactly as written. The description comes from the picked field, and the canonical address is the record's own page.
  • The sitemap lists every record page, with each record's last edit as its date. Templates that are unpublished or hidden from search aren't listed.
  • /llms.txt names the group, with its page count and a link to your listing page when one is published at the base.
  • Pages stay fresh. Editing, adding or removing a record refreshes its page and the pages listing it, whether the change comes from the Data page, an import, a form, an automation or the REST API. Publishing the template refreshes every page it draws.

When records go away​

  • A record with no page address has no page; give it one and its page appears.
  • If two records share an address, the one first in the dataset's order gets the page.
  • If the dataset stops being shared with the site, or is deleted, its record pages stop answering. They 404 rather than show data the site may no longer see.
  • Stop serving in Record pages takes every record page down. You're then offered to make the page a normal page again. It counts toward your plan's pages if you do, and any {{item.field}} tokens show as plain text until you edit them out. Keep it hidden leaves it a template, so it doesn't answer at its own address either.
  • A site that switches the Data plugin off serves no record pages.

Locations, team members, portfolio​

The same steps cover any set of similar pages:

DatasetAddressA record's page
Service areasservice-areas/service-areas/round-rock
Teamteam/team/marisol-vega
Projectswork/work/hillside-kitchen

Each dataset has one record template per site. Two templates can nest, like services and services/residential, but never share an address. An address can't take a path the site already uses for a content collection (/blog), the store (/products, /collections), author pages (/author) or a reserved address.