Squarespace SEO services

This is search work for a site built on Squarespace. It is the same work we sell for a site on any platform: a one-time written audit in which each finding names the documentation it rests on, with the fixes done and tested again, or a set number of hours each month spent on a written list.

What differs on Squarespace is who decides. Squarespace writes part of what a search engine is told, and lets you change the rest through its own settings. So this page says three things plainly: what Squarespace already does for you, what is yours to change, and what is not. Each statement about Squarespace is from its own help center, as it stood on October 10, 2026.

What Squarespace does by itself

None of this needs setting up, and nobody should charge you for it.

• A sitemap. Squarespace makes one at /sitemap.xml and updates it when you add or remove content.
• robots.txt. Every Squarespace site is served the same file. It asks crawlers to stay out of addresses that are for internal use or that repeat content found elsewhere on the site, such as /config/ and /search.
• A certificate. Every domain that points at the site correctly gets a free SSL certificate. Under the default setting, "Secure", visitors are sent to the https address and the sitemap lists https addresses.
• Redirects between your domains. Every custom domain connected to the site redirects to the one set as primary, with a 301.
• Structured data. Squarespace's help lists six kinds it writes: blog post, event, local business, organization, product and website.
• A canonical tag where it makes two addresses for one page. The home page also answers at /home, and Squarespace asks Google to list only the first. The filtered pages that a blog's tags and categories make carry a canonical tag too.
• Alt text of a kind. An image's description is used as its alt text. With no description, Squarespace uses the file name.

What we look at

Everything else is yours to change, in Squarespace's own settings, and that is where an audit looks.

• Whether the site is open. Site Availability is Public, Password Protected or Private, and only a Public site can be indexed. Under Settings, then Crawlers, the "Block Search engine crawlers" box asks every search engine to stay out.
• Whether pages ask to be left out. "Hide page from search results" in a page's SEO settings adds a noindex tag, and on a blog page or a store page it hides every post or product with it. We also look for a noindex pasted into code injection, page passwords and disabled pages.
• Which address is listed. The primary domain, whether the built-in .squarespace.com address is in Google's results beside it, and the SSL setting. Squarespace's help says domains registered or connected before October 2016 are set to "Insecure", under which the sitemap lists http addresses and search engines index the http version.
• Addresses that changed. Squarespace does not redirect an old address when you change a page's URL slug: its help says a visitor who follows the old link gets a 404. Redirects are lines in the URL mappings panel, each in the form /old-url -> /new-url 301, read from the top down. We look for old addresses that answer 404 and for lines that are in the wrong order or point at a disabled page.
• What your pages say about themselves. SEO titles and SEO descriptions that are missing or doubled, the title formats, headings, and images whose alt text is a file name.
• What the reports say. The page indexing and sitemap reports in Search Console, status by status, and Bing Webmaster Tools where it is set up. Some statuses on a Squarespace site need nothing done, and the report says which, from Squarespace's help.
• For a store, what a product page tells a search engine, and what Search Console says about it.

You can run three of these checks yourself, for free: whether a page can be indexed, what your sitemap holds and whether a robots.txt rule blocks an address. If the trouble is that the site is not in Google at all, start with Squarespace site not showing up on Google.

What Squarespace does not let you change

Some of what an audit finds on a Squarespace site is Squarespace's to decide. Each line here is from its help center. Where a finding falls under one of them, the report says what we saw, names the page of Squarespace's help that makes it theirs, and marks it as one you cannot act on from inside Squarespace. We sell no fix for it.

• robots.txt. Squarespace's help says: "All Squarespace sites use the same robots.txt file and Squarespace users can't access or edit the file." What you have is the two Crawlers boxes. One asks every search engine to stay out of the whole site. The other asks a list of AI crawlers to. Squarespace says it is not possible to ask AI crawlers to leave out only some pages.
• The sitemap. "You can't edit the sitemap or a page's source code." Squarespace decides what is listed and the priority each entry is given.
• The structured data. Of the six kinds it writes, Squarespace says you cannot edit or remove them. When Search Console warns that a product lacks a field, Squarespace's help says the page is still indexed and still eligible for features like rich snippets.
• The cart and checkout pages. Squarespace adds a noindex tag to /cart and /checkout on every site and says it cannot be removed.
• The home page's settings. It has no SEO title field of its own, since its title comes from the home page title format, and no "Hide page from search results" toggle.
• One post or one product. It cannot be hidden from search by itself. Squarespace says you cannot leave out a single item without leaving out the whole blog or store page.
• The built-in domain. Every site keeps its .squarespace.com address. Squarespace says it cannot be removed and does not redirect to your custom domain.
• The shape of some addresses. On version 7.1 a product's address always has p/ before its slug. A blog post's address always begins with the blog page's slug. Slugs are lowercase, and an address typed with a capital letter answers with the 404 page.
• What can be redirected. Not the address of an image or a file, and not /. Most redirects cannot contain ?, & or #. A redirect works only once the old page is deleted or disabled, and is a 301 or a 302. The field holds 400 KB, which Squarespace puts at around 2,500 lines.
• Code in the page's head, on some plans. Squarespace's help says code injection is not available in the Basic or Personal plans, so a tag that has to be pasted in cannot be added there.
• The certificate. Squarespace does not support installing a certificate from anyone else.

If your trouble is on this list and it matters enough to you, the remedy is not a setting. Moving to a platform where it is yours to change is a separate and much larger job: Squarespace to WordPress migration. Most sites never need one.

What you get

The audit, once.

• A written report. Each finding says what we saw, where, and why it matters, and names the page of Google's, Bing's or Squarespace's documentation it rests on. Google's own advice to anyone buying this kind of work is to ask whether the recommendations come with its official documentation as evidence. Ours do.
• The fixes, done. What can be put right in Squarespace's settings is put right as part of the job, up to the hours the price includes. The price and those hours are on this page.
• Each fix tested again. After a change we ask for the page from outside, the way a crawler would, and record what it answers now.
• A list of what is left. Anything that needs more time or a decision from you, in the order we would do it, and apart from it the findings that are Squarespace's to decide.

Hours each month.

• The hours, spent on a written list that you have seen and agreed to, usually drawn from an audit.
• A report every month of what was done, what was tested, and what Google's and Bing's own reports show, each figure with the day it was read.
• An honest end. When nothing is left on the list that is worth your money, we say so. Plans are month to month.

What we need from you

• Read access to Search Console. Under Settings, then Users and permissions, add us as a restricted user, which is Google's name for view rights. Google's guidance on hiring this kind of help says to grant read access for an audit and not write access. If the site was never connected, Squarespace connects it from its Analytics panel, and you sign in with your own Google account.
• An invitation as a contributor. In Squarespace's Permissions & Ownership panel, choose "Invite Contributor", enter the email address we give you and switch on the permissions. Squarespace's table of permissions gives page settings and URL slugs to the owner and administrators only, so making the fixes takes the Administrator permission. If you would rather not give it, we write each change out and you make it yourself.
• Never a password. Every contributor signs in with a Squarespace account of their own. When the work is done, open the same panel, choose our name and then "Remove Contributor". Squarespace says that blocks the login.

On the Basic plan Squarespace allows one contributor besides the owner. And a step that Google gives to a property's owner, such as submitting a sitemap in the Sitemaps report, is yours to make. We write it out.

How it works

What it does not cover

• A ranking, or a figure for traffic. Google's page on hiring help says it plainly: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." Squarespace's own help says it cannot guarantee ranking changes either.
• Links. Buying links to improve a ranking is in Google's spam policies under link spam.
• Reviews written or rewarded. The FTC's rule on reviews, in force since October 21, 2024, bans fake reviews. Google's policy for Maps bans any incentive for a review.
• Articles by volume. Google's spam policies name making many pages for the sake of rankings and not for readers.
• Listings in bulk. No search engine documents that being listed in dozens of directories does anything for a site.
• Ads. Paid advertising is not part of this work.
• Upkeep. Squarespace runs the platform, so there is nothing of that kind to sell you. Our care plans are for WordPress and WooCommerce.
• A redesign, or writing new pages. The report can say that a page is thin or that two pages compete for one search. The writing is a separate job.

The reasons for the first five, with their sources, are on WordPress SEO services. They are the same on any platform. Every kind of search work we sell is listed under SEO services. A business that people visit also has a Google Business Profile to look after, which is local SEO.