Gather round, SEO’s! I’m back at it again answering your burning questions all about Squarespace SEO and today we’ve got a banger of a topic…. site maps!

That’s right, today we’re talking all about site maps for your Squarespace website and what they mean for SEO. I’ll explain what a site map is, how they work on Squarespace websites, what you need to do (vs what Squarespace does for you), how site maps get updated if you add/remove pages from your website, private and password protected pages…. and MUCH more!

Site maps (or sitemaps) are one of the most foundational aspects of SEO because it’s how search engines (like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) figure out what pages they should crawl and index when looking at your site.

Without it, it would be prettttttty hard to figure out what’s going on with your website, let alone what pages to consider for online searches!

It sounds a bit confusing if you don’t know what it means, but once you understand how sitemaps work, you can rest easy knowing that the tech heavy lifting happens on the back end :)

This is the kind of insider info that I give to my Squarespace SEO consulting clients and students in my signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO. But since I’m not one for secrets and truly want the best for anyone with a website, I’m giving you the goods here totally for free - no gatekeeping here!

Oh, and I’ve even recorded a video tutorial for you to watch in case that’s more your vibe.

It’s more fun that it sounds - I promise! So without further ado, let’s dive right in.

SQUARESPACE SEO SERIES

I have so many tips to share on the subject that it would have been crazy to put it all in one article! There are many misconceptions about Squarespace SEO which is why I've dedicate so many posts & videos to this topic. Enjoy!

Work with Charlotte - explore my Squarespace SEO services & programs

sitemaps and squarespace seo

Note: At the time of recording, this video shows my website on Squarespace version 7.0 . Your own website might look slightly different if your website is on Squarespace version 7.1 or uses a different 7.0 template, but the tips are still the same!

What is a sitemap?

A sitemap is a list of URLs on the site that tells search engines (like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) about the structure of the content of the website.

Basically, a sitemap tells search engines what pages are available to crawl and index, and therefore possibly return those pages in online search results.

Now, if we think about how your website is built, you might have LOTS of pages created but not all of them are included in the main/primary navigation of your website. That’s totally fine, my own website is set up that way!

With a sitemap, Google can see much further beyond just the pages that you have included in the main navigation - instead, they can see all the other pages that you have set up, including all the pages that exist in the Not Linked pages section. This is a good thing :)

Squarespace takes care of the sitemap for you

An important thing to note about sitemaps is that if your website is built & hosted by Squarespace, then Squarespace will automatically create a sitemap for you. They create it for the search engines, this is not something you have to manually do!

Squarespace uses the .xml format to create the sitemap (that’s a bit technical and not something you really need to think about, but thought I’d throw that info in there for you in case you really wanted to know LOL)

Again, Squarespace will take care of the sitemap for you.

You, as the website owner or person running a Squarespace website, do not have to worry about creating a sitemap.

Changes to the sitemap

The cool thing about sitemaps is that they are ever-changing and dynamic, along with any updates you make to your Squarespace website. They evolve with you as your website changes over time!

So, for example, if you add a new page to your Squarespace website, this will automatically be reflected in the sitemap.

Or on the flip side, if you remove/delete/disable a page from your Squarespace website, the sitemap will be updated to no longer include that old page.

Again, this applies to all pages on your Squarespace website - whether it’s in the main navigation, not linked pages, etc.

This is a great feature, that you will not have to manually update the site map every time you make changes to your website - again, Squarespace takes care of that for you automatically.

These changes will be reflected on the sitemap usually within an hour, however it could take up to 24 hours for the sitemap to be fully updated by Squarespace.

So if you don’t see the new pages added to the site map right away, or if you notice that it’s been a few hours and the old pages are still included in the sitemap - that’s OK! Just sit tight, be patient, and relax knowing that Squarespace is working on it for you haha

Public websites only

When we talk about the sitemap and how it works for SEO on our Squarespace websites, it’s important to note that we are ONLY talking about the PUBLIC Squarespace websites.

If you website is still unpublished (aka not live yet), or if it’s password protected, then the sitemap will not be available or submitted to search engines, because obviously you don’t want any of those pages to be crawled and indexed to show up in online search results.

Password Protected & Disabled Pages

Taking things one step further, any password protected pages that you have on your Squarespace website will NOT be included in the sitemap.

Again, this makes sense because we do not want to submit those password protected pages to search engines to crawl & index, and we definitely don’t want the content of those password protected pages to show up in online search results.

Same thing goes for disabled pages. Only enabled pages (aka live pages) are included in the sitemap.

Pages in the not linked pages section

Like I mentioned above, search engines like Google will still include pages in the Not Linked Pages section of your Squarespace website… unless they are disabled, password protected (in which case they will not be included in the site map because we don’t want those pages to show up in online search results).

So again, if you have a public (live) page in the not linked pages section, it will still be included in the sitemap of your Squarespace website.

Pages in the not linked section are 100% still included in the site map (assuming they are live public pages) - it just means they aren’t seen in the main navigation at the top of your website.

What’s NOT included in the sitemap

Alright, now that you understand what a sitemap is, how it works, what happens if you add/remove pages from your website, and what is included, let’s talk about what’s NOT included in the sitemap of your Squarespace website!

1. Disabled pages, password protected pages, and/or pages hidden from search

We already talked about disabled pages and password protected pages being excluded from the sitemap of your Squarespace website, but I want to remind you that along those lines, pages hidden from search are also excluded from the sitemap.

You can toggle over the “pages hidden from search” option on any page, but this is most commonly used on index pages (because you don’t want the sub-pages of the index page to get crawled & indexed independently - you only want them to appear on the full page in it’s entirety).

If you want to hide a page from search, here’s what you would do:

open up the page settings
click on the SEO tab
scroll down and toggle the “hide page from search results” option

2. Old URLs used to create URL Redirects

If you aren’t familiar with URL redirects, you can read my post about them here: The real reason why URL redirects are so important for Squarespace SEO

It makes sense that we wouldn’t want OLD URLs to be included in the sitemap - we only want Google to see the current version of all the pages that make up your website, particularly the pages you want to be indexed and show up in online search results.

3. Style information

Not much to say about this, honestly you don’t have to worry too much hahaha

4. URL for uploaded files

If you have any uploaded files on your Squarespace website, their unique URL will NOT be included in the sitemap.

Again that makes sense because you probably don’t want people to just stumble across a random file when they are doing an online search - instead, you would want them to see the page that hosts the file, not the specific url for the file.

5. Code blocks and embed block content

Unless you’ve gone really crazy with custom code and are using lots of code blocks or embed blocks on your Squarespace website, this proabably isn’t something you have to think about BUT I wanted to include this point just in case!

I have a few other posts about using code on your Squarespace website and how it might affect SEO:

6. Individual URLs of the pages of an Index page

This goes back to our point above about index pages and their sub-pages being hidden from online search result.

Index pages are how we build pages to give us greater control over the look & feel, design and layout of the page. But from an SEO point of view, we only want the page visitor and Google to interact with the page as a whole, as it exists in its entirety, and not to look at it as a bunch of separate pages all stacked one on top of each other (even if, technically, that’s what an index page is haha)

Final Thoughts

And there you have it, folks - everything you need to know about sitemaps and Squarespace SEO!

Now you know what they are, how they work, what’s included and excluded, what happens if you update or change the website or pages, and all that jazz!

Rest assured that Squarespace takes care of the site map for you - there’s nothing you need to do, it’s automatically taken care of.

Sitemaps are definitely a “behind the scenes” player when it comes to SEO and your Squarespace website, but it’s still useful to understand what’s going on.

Hope this was helpful and I’ll see you again soon in the next post!

xoxo

Charlotte

Exciting news : my signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO, is now open for enrollment and I’d love to have you join us inside the program! Learn all about it here.

If 1-on-1 is more your style, then I encourage you to sign up for my Squarespace SEO Audit & Consulting Sessions! We’ll hop on Zoom, make changes to your Squarespace website in real time, and you’ll get a totally personalized Squarespace SEO strategy to follow moving forward.

You can also sign up for my newsletter (right here or below), where I often share Squarespace SEO tips, tricks and high-quality exclusive content. I send out emails to my list a few days a week, mostly focused on Squarespace SEO, business and online marketing tips, and a behind the scenes look at what’s going on in my corner of the internet, and I can guarantee that you’ll find the newsletter topics interesting, entertaining and worth your time. #humblebrag

Finally, shameless plug: hit me up with any specific questions you have about Squarespace SEO and your website because I’m your girl. You can reach out to me directly if you’re interested in working together on your website and we can talk about whether or not you would be a good fit for my consulting and ongoing services. I can’t take on every request to do Squarespace SEO consulting but I do pick a few websites and businesses to work with every month and I’d love for you to be one of them.