Squarespace site not showing up on Google: what to check, in order

To find out why a Squarespace site is not showing up on Google, first confirm that it is missing: search Google for site: followed by your domain. If your pages come back, the site is listed, and what you are seeing is a question of ranking. If nothing comes back, either the site is new and Google has not reached it yet, or something is keeping Google out. On Squarespace that is one of a short list: a site that is not set to Public, the "Block Search engine crawlers" box, a page hidden from search results, or a search for the wrong one of the site's two addresses.

This page is about being listed at all. Where a listed page ranks for a phrase is a different subject, and nothing here promises anything about it. Each statement about Squarespace is from its own help center, as it stood on October 10, 2026.

For a quick first look from outside, give one address to the page indexing check. It says whether that page answers, and whether the page, its headers or robots.txt ask to be left out. The checks below go further, in the order that rules each cause out fastest.

What you see and where to go

1. Is the site really missing?

Google's help page on missing pages starts here, because a page that sits far down the results is easily taken for one that is not there at all. Listed and ranking are two different things. A site that is listed can still be on the tenth page for the phrase you typed. Squarespace's own page on this starts the same way.

2. Is the site new?

If the site went public recently, waiting may be all that is left to do. Google's help page on missing pages says that crawling and then indexing a new page typically takes from a day or two to a few weeks in total, and that many things affect it. It also says to allow at least a week after you submitted a sitemap or asked for indexing before assuming a problem.

What you can do in that time is short:

• Ask once. In Search Console's URL Inspection tool, select "Request indexing" for the home page. Google's documentation says that asking again for the same address does not get it crawled any faster, and that a request does not guarantee the page will be included.
• Give Google the sitemap. Check 8 shows where it is.
• Get a link from a site Google already knows. Google says it discovers new sites from existing ones.

Then run checks 3 to 6 anyway. A new site that is still set to Private looks exactly like a new site that is waiting, and only one of them will ever be listed.

3. Is the site public?

Squarespace has one setting that decides who can see the site at all, called Site Availability. It has three values, and Squarespace's help gives what each means for search:

Two things about it catch new sites.

• Every site starts as Private. Squarespace's help says: "All sites are set to private by default." Paying for a plan does not by itself make a site public.
• A trial site cannot be Public. Squarespace says trial sites are hidden from search engines and that only paid sites can be public. Its page on missing sites adds that search engines will not find trial, expired or canceled sites.

How to see it. Open the site in a private browser window, where you are not logged in. A "Private Site" message or a password prompt is the answer. Or open the Site Availability panel in Squarespace and read which value is selected.

What to do. Make sure the site is on a paid subscription. Open the Site Availability panel, select "Public", then "Save". Squarespace's help says that after this, search engines can find and index the site. If the setting will not change, its help gives one cause to check: an SEO site description longer than 300 characters. If the site was open before and you closed it for a while, pages may still be in Google from the earlier time. Being listed once is not proof that the site is open now.

4. Is the site asking search engines to stay away?

A public site can still ask every search engine to leave it out. In Squarespace, open Settings, then Crawlers. There are two boxes.

"Block Search engine crawlers". Squarespace's help gives checking this box as the way to tell search engines not to index a site. The rule below is then added to the site's robots.txt, and the help says the site will not be indexed by search engines.

Disallow: /

How to see it. Read the box in the Crawlers panel. From outside, open /robots.txt on your own domain and look for a line that reads Disallow: / with nothing after the slash. Lines that name a path, such as /config, are normal: see check 7. Paste the file into the robots.txt tester to see whether a crawler may ask for an address, and which line decides.

What to do. Clear the box. Google has to read robots.txt and crawl the pages again before anything changes. One more thing follows from how this box works. Google's documentation says the address of a page blocked by robots.txt can still appear in results, with no description, when other sites link to it. So a site with this box checked can show up as bare addresses and nothing else.

"Block known artificial intelligence crawlers". This is the second box. Checking it adds a list of AI crawlers to robots.txt, which Squarespace's help prints in full. The list names Google-Extended and GoogleOther, and not Googlebot, which is the crawler Google Search uses. Google says Google-Extended does not affect whether a site is included in Google Search. So this box does not explain a site that is missing from Google. The AI crawler access check shows what your robots.txt tells each AI crawler by name.

5. Is the page hidden from search results?

When the home page is listed and another page is not, look at that page's own settings. Squarespace's help page on missing sites gives the list. Open the Pages panel, hover over the page and open its settings.

• General tab: is the page enabled? A disabled page cannot be reached by visitors or search engines.
• General tab: is there a page password? Squarespace says a page with a password is not accessible to search engines.
• SEO tab: is "Hide page from search results" on? The toggle adds a noindex tag to the page. Squarespace's troubleshooting page prints the same setting as "Hide this page from search results".
• Advanced tab: is there noindex code? On plans with code injection, someone may have pasted in the tag below. Look in the site-wide code injection as well: there it applies to every page.
• Is the page behind a paywall? Squarespace says pages and member sites behind paywalls are not indexed.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

Two rules of the toggle catch people. Hiding a blog page, a store page or any other collection page hides every item in it, so one toggle can take every post or every product out of search. And it does not work the other way: Squarespace says you cannot leave out one post or one product without leaving out the whole page they belong to. The home page has no such toggle at all.

How to see it from outside. Open the page, view its source in your browser and search for noindex. The page indexing check does the same for one address. In Search Console, "Indexing allowed?" in the URL Inspection tool reports it, and the Page indexing report lists such pages under "URL marked 'noindex'".

What to do. Turn the toggle off, remove the code or the password, or enable the page. Google has to crawl the page again before the listing changes, and you can ask for that once with "Request indexing".

6. Which domain are you looking for?

A Squarespace site answers at two kinds of address: the built-in one, which ends in .squarespace.com, and any custom domain you have connected. Squarespace's help says three things about them that matter here.

• The built-in domain cannot be removed, and it does not redirect to your custom domain. A visitor, or a crawler, that asks for the built-in address gets the site at that address.
• Custom domains all redirect to the one set as primary, with a 301. Squarespace says search engines show only the primary custom domain.
• Setting a primary custom domain updates the sitemap to that domain, which tells search engines which address to list.

So there are two ways to be looking in the wrong place.

The built-in address is listed and your domain is not. Squarespace's help says the likely reason is that the site was indexed before you added the domain, and that the remedy is to ask for a re-index through Search Console. Connect Search Console for the custom domain (check 9), submit the sitemap (check 8) and request indexing for the home page.

Search Console is looking at the other address. Squarespace's connection verifies the site's primary domain. Its help says that if you add a custom domain after connecting with the built-in one, or switch primary domains, you have to connect again. Google's help adds why an old property looks empty: a URL-prefix property holds only addresses that begin with exactly that prefix, http or https included.

A domain bought elsewhere also has to be connected correctly before any of this works. Squarespace recommends waiting 48 hours after connecting one before you verify it with Google.

7. What robots.txt says, and why you cannot edit it

On most platforms this check is "read the file and fix the rule". On Squarespace only half of that is open to you. Its help says: "All Squarespace sites use the same robots.txt file and Squarespace users can't access or edit the file." The two boxes in check 4 are the only part of it you decide.

What the shared file blocks is deliberate. Squarespace says it asks Google not to crawl pages that are for internal use or that show content found elsewhere on the site. Its examples are /config/, which is the login page, /search, and addresses that carry ?tag=, ?author=, ?month=, ?view= or ?format=.

That is why Search Console tells nearly every Squarespace owner that parts of the site are restricted by robots.txt. Squarespace's help says the message is completely normal and can be ignored. What is not normal is the single line from check 4, Disallow: /, which closes everything.

If a real page of yours is reported as blocked and that box is clear, read the reported address closely. One that carries ?tag= or ?format= is a filtered view of a page, not the page itself, and blocking it is what Squarespace intends.

8. The sitemap, and giving it to Google

Squarespace makes a sitemap for every site by itself and keeps it up to date. Its help gives the address for each kind of domain:

https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
https://sitename.squarespace.com/sitemap.xml

How to see it. Open that address in a browser, or give your domain to the sitemap checker, which finds the sitemap and reads it. If it does not load, Squarespace's help has two reasons: the site is Private or Password Protected, or it is a trial. Both lead back to check 3.

What is in it. Squarespace decides, and says you cannot edit the sitemap. By its own table the sitemap leaves out disabled pages, pages hidden from search in page settings, password-protected pages, the old addresses of redirects and the addresses of uploaded files. So a page missing from the sitemap points back at check 5. A page given a noindex tag through code injection is the exception: it stays in the sitemap. Changes usually show within an hour, by Squarespace's help, and can take up to 24 hours.

Giving it to Google. Squarespace says you do not need to submit the sitemap by hand. Google's help says you can still submit one it already knows about, and the Sitemaps report then shows whether Google could read it. In Search Console, open "Sitemaps", enter the sitemap's address under "Add a new sitemap" and select "Submit". Google's help says you need owner permissions on the property to do this.

If the report says "Couldn't fetch", Squarespace's help says that does not always mean something is wrong, and that the message can show for 24 to 48 hours while Google processes the sitemap. Past that, go back to check 3: a sitemap that does not load for you does not load for Google.

Google is plain about what a sitemap is: a hint. Its documentation says submitting one does not guarantee that Google will download the sitemap or use it to crawl the site.

9. Connect Search Console

Search Console is where Google says what it has done with your pages, so every check above is easier with it. Squarespace has its own way to connect it, and its help lists what has to be true first:

• The site has no site-wide password, and no page password on the home page.
• The site is not a trial. Verification does not work on a trial site.
• A domain bought elsewhere is connected correctly.
• You have a Google account.

Squarespace does not support Google's verification method that uploads a file to the site. If you verify by hand, its help recommends a TXT record in the domain's DNS settings.

Then ask Google for the home page once: in the URL Inspection tool, enter its full address and select "Request indexing".

10. None of the above: what Google chooses to list

If the site is Public, both Crawlers boxes are clear, the page is not hidden and you are looking at the right domain, then Google can reach the pages. What is left is Google's decision, and Google is plain that it makes no promise: its documentation says it does not guarantee to crawl, index or serve a page even when the page meets every requirement. Squarespace's help says the same from its side: it cannot guarantee that Google will crawl, index or show a site.

Two statuses in Search Console's Page indexing report describe pages in that position.

"Crawled - currently not indexed". Google's help says only that the page was crawled and not indexed, that it may or may not be indexed later, and that there is no need to resubmit the address. It gives no reason and no remedy.

"Discovered - currently not indexed". Google knows the address and has not crawled it. Its help explains the usual case as a matter of load: "Google wanted to crawl the URL but this was expected to overload the site", so the crawl was put off.

Some other statuses on a Squarespace site need nothing done, and Squarespace's help names them:

• "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" for the home page. The home page has two addresses, the bare domain and /home, and Squarespace asks Google to list only the first.
• A noindex on /cart and /checkout. Squarespace adds it on every site and says it cannot be removed.
• Addresses blocked by robots.txt, as in check 7.

What a site owner can do:

• Make the pages easy to reach. Google's help asks that every page can be reached by following links from the home page. On Squarespace a page moved to "Not linked" stays in the sitemap and is out of the navigation, so link to it from a page that is in it.
• Look at the pages themselves. Google's documentation says its systems put high-quality, useful content first when deciding what to include.

What nobody can do is make Google list a page. Requesting indexing again does not move a page up the queue, and Google says it accepts no payment to crawl a site more often.

When to get help

• Ask Squarespace when a domain will not connect or a certificate shows an error. Those are its to fix. Its help says its support can help you verify a site with Search Console and cannot help with Search Console beyond that.
• Hand it over when you would rather have every check made for you and written down. A Squarespace SEO audit from WP Ministry is a one-time written audit: each finding names the documentation it rests on and says whether it is yours to change or Squarespace's.

What can be fixed is a site that keeps Google out. Whether Google then lists a page, and where, stays Google's decision.