Why your new Squarespace site isn’t showing up in Google search results
On more than one occasion we’ve had clients ask us why their new Squarespace site isn’t showing up in Google search results approximately 5 minutes after the site going live for the first time. Now it’s easy to understand why that’s a bit of a ridiculous question - a site needs to be read by Google before it can get ranked by Google - it’s like asking a librarian for a book recommendation for a book that’s come out just hours before.
But if your new Squarespace pages have been live for longer than a few brief hours and still not showing up, our resident SEO guru, Matt Batterham, shares some likely reasons why not, and some things you can do to get them seen.
1. Google hasn’t had a chance to crawl or index your site yet
When you publish a new site or page it’ll take some time for Google to crawl it, and more time after that to index it. This could be a few days or weeks, depending on factors mostly out of your control. So if your site or page is brand new, it likely isn't showing because Google simply hasn’t had a chance to crawl or index it yet - this is normal.
There are however some actions you can take to help Google find and crawl your site more effectively, which could help speed up the indexing process now, and when adding new pages in the future:
Submit an XML sitemap - A sitemap is a file containing information about the pages on your site, and the relationships between them. Google reads your sitemap file to crawl your site more efficiently. Squarespace will automatically create an XML sitemap for your site so you don't need to create one manually - you can find it by adding /sitemap.xml to the end of your domain e.g. www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Once you’ve found your sitemap you can submit it via Google Search Console. Side note; if you haven’t set up a Google Search Console account, do it now!
Verify your site - You can request that Google index your site through Google Search Console, which can help your pages be found quicker.
Check your site’s link structure - Ensuring any page on your site can be accessed by following a link or a chain of links from your homepage will help Google discover your pages faster.
External links - Google discovers new sites through links from existing sites, so getting your site listed on business directories, industry publications, blogs, social media pages and alike can help speed up the crawling and indexing process.
These actions are intended to help Google crawl and index your site more efficiently, but they’ll only work if your site is accessible to search engines. If your site still isn’t showing after a few weeks, It might be due to something in your settings or page configuration. This leads us to…
2. Something is preventing Google from crawling your site
You can check if Google has indexed your site by running a site search. Head to Google and search for site: followed by your site's domain name e.g. site:www.yoursite.com. This will show search results for every page Google has indexed.
If no pages are indexed after a few weeks, check the following:
Check your homepage and any other pages you want to be indexed aren't password protected, as Google won't be able to crawl these.
Check you’ve upgraded your Squarespace account because Google can’t crawl trial sites.
Remove any noindex tags, if they exist.
If you run a site search and some pages are indexed, check the following page settings in your Squarespace account:
In General settings, ensure ‘Enable’ is checked.
In General settings, check for a page password and remove it if there is one.
In SEO settings, ensure ‘Hide this page from search results’ isn't checked.
In Advanced settings, remove any noindex code if it exists.
3. Your site is indexed but isn’t ranking for keyword searches
If your pages are indexed but aren't showing when you search for specific keywords or your brand name, it’s likely a ranking issue. For new sites, in particular, getting pages ranking highly in Google‘s search results can take a lot of work and in most cases, there is no quick fix.
In this scenario, your best bet is to work with an SEO consultant (Hi!) who will ensure your site is search engine friendly and optimised for relevant search queries.
