Is Squarespace good for SEO? What 113 Squarespace sites show
The study behind this page cannot say whether Squarespace is good or bad for rankings. Nothing here says whether these problems cost traffic or rankings. A figure describes sites built on a platform. It mixes platform defaults with owner choices and with the kind of site each platform attracts. What it does show: on 113 Squarespace sites that count, out of 129 crawled, which technical SEO problems were common, and where Squarespace sites differ from sites built with six other platforms.
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The short answer
The study cannot say whether Squarespace is good or bad for rankings. It shows which technical SEO problems are common on Squarespace sites, and where they differ from sites built with six other platforms.[1]
What is common on Squarespace sites
The five most common warning-level problems on the 113 Squarespace sites that count. A site has a problem when at least one of its pages does.[1]
- Heading hierarchy skips levels. A page jumps a heading level, for example from an H2 to an H4. On 98.2% of Squarespace sites that count (111 of 113; 95% interval 93.8 to 99.5).[1]
- Page is canonicalised to another URL. A page names a different address as its canonical. On 97.3% of Squarespace sites that count (110 of 113; 95% interval 92.5 to 99.1).[1]
- Unsafe cross-origin links (target=_blank without noopener). A link opens another site in a new tab without rel="noopener". On 97.3% of Squarespace sites that count (110 of 113; 95% interval 92.5 to 99.1).[1]
- Duplicate ID attributes. Two elements on one page share an id. On 95.6% of Squarespace sites that count (108 of 113; 95% interval 90.1 to 98.1).[1]
- Protocol-relative resource links. A script, stylesheet or image address starts with // and not with https://. On 93.8% of Squarespace sites that count (106 of 113; 95% interval 87.8 to 97).[1]
Where Squarespace sites differ from other builders
The six problems with the widest gap between the seven platforms. Squarespace sites had the highest share of the seven for two of them: microdata markup is broken, and internal links point at URLs robots.txt disallows.[1]
| Problem | Squarespace | Lowest platform | Highest platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSTS max-age under 180 days | 38.1% | Webflow, 0% | Shopify, 95.6% |
| Microdata markup is broken | 93.8% | Wix, 0% | Squarespace, 93.8% |
| Protocol-relative resource links | 93.8% | Wix, 8.5% | Shopify, 97.4% |
| Images missing alt attribute | 45.1% | Wix, 6.4% | Shopify, 85.1% |
| Internal links point at URLs robots.txt disallows | 79.6% | Wix, 5.3% | Squarespace, 79.6% |
| No main landmark | 20.4% | Shopify, 13.2% | Webflow, 87.1% |
All seven builders side by side: what 743 sites built with seven website builders get wrong.
Which Squarespace sites these are
129 Squarespace sites were crawled and 113 count. Sites were drawn at random, with a fixed seed, from the Tranco list of popular domains, between rank 1,000 and rank 1,000,000, and the platform was detected from each homepage’s markup. No site is named.[1]
What this does not show
The study’s own limits, word for word:
- Search outcomes. Nothing here says whether these problems cost traffic or rankings.
- Cause. A figure describes sites built on a platform. It mixes platform defaults with owner choices and with the kind of site each platform attracts.
- Sites we could not crawl fully. If sites that refuse or block crawlers differ from the rest, the figures lean toward sites that are easy to crawl. The number left out is published with each version.
- Every page of large sites. Crawls stop at 1,000 pages; the number of sites that hit the cap is published with each version.
- Pages after JavaScript. Figures read the HTML as served. Speed (LCP, CLS) and accessibility need a browser and are not measured.
- Individual sites. No site is named, and the downloads hold totals only, one row per platform and problem.
Check your own Squarespace site
A share of 113 sites does not say what is on yours. Our free SEO audit is a real crawl of up to 25 of your pages, with no account, and lists the issues to fix first. What an SEO audit checks explains what it looks at.
Questions
Is Squarespace good for SEO?
This study cannot say. It counts technical SEO problems on 113 Squarespace sites that count, out of 129 crawled. Nothing here says whether these problems cost traffic or rankings. A figure describes sites built on a platform. It mixes platform defaults with owner choices and with the kind of site each platform attracts.
What SEO problems are common on Squarespace sites?
In the study, the most common warning-level problems were: heading hierarchy skips levels (98.2% of sites that count), page is canonicalised to another URL (97.3%) and unsafe cross-origin links (target=_blank without noopener) (97.3%).
How many Squarespace sites were checked?
113 sites that count, out of 129 crawled. v1 snapshot, 7 Nov 2026.
Sources
- Convertlyft, “Website Builder SEO Benchmark: 743 sites on seven platforms”, v1, convertlyft.com/research/platform-seo-benchmark, published 7 November 2026. Licensed CC BY 4.0.
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