Guides · The Promptable Sites team · Updated October 2026

Leaving Squarespace in 2026: How to Move Your Site Without Losing Google Rankings

Short answer: You can leave Squarespace and keep your Google rankings. The key is to keep your domain, keep your page addresses the same where you can, and point every address that does change to its new home with a permanent redirect. Skipping that last step is one of the most common ways to lose rankings in a move. Google says rankings can go up and down for a while after a move.¹ That’s because Google has to revisit each old address, find its redirect, and swap the new address into search results. For a medium-sized site, Google says that takes a few weeks or more.¹

This guide walks through the whole decision: whether to leave, where to go, what comes with you, and the safe order to do it in. If you’d rather know what this looks like for your own site, there’s a free site check further down.

Should you leave at all?

Squarespace raised its prices by up to 26% for US-dollar plans in July 2026. Core went from $23 to $29 a month and Plus from $39 to $49 on annual billing.² Many owners took a second look at what they’re paying for.

That doesn’t mean everyone should go. Here’s an honest split.

Stay on Squarespace if:

• You sell a lot of products and use its store, inventory, and checkout every day.
• You run member areas or paid courses inside it.
• You like the drag-and-drop editor and don’t want to learn anything new.
• Your site works, brings in business, and the price doesn’t bother you.

Consider moving if:

• You want changes done in minutes by asking AI, instead of clicking through an editor or waiting on a developer.
• You want an AI agent to look after your site on a schedule: flag outdated posts, suggest what to cut, and draft updates for you to approve.
• Your site is slow on phones and you’ve hit the limits of what you can fix.
• You want to own your site outright, instead of renting it.
• Your site is mostly pages, a blog, a portfolio, and contact or booking forms.

More detail: Should You Leave Squarespace After the 2026 Price Increase?

Where can you go?

Full comparison: Squarespace Alternatives for Small Business (2026)

The last option is the one we do, so weigh our view with that in mind. “A site you own” means your pages are plain files in your own accounts. You make changes by telling Claude what you want, like “add a new testimonial to the home page,” and it updates the site for you. More on that: How to Edit Your Website by Talking to Claude

What comes with you, and what doesn’t

Squarespace has an export button, but it covers less than most owners expect.

The export includes: layout pages, one blog with its posts, gallery pages, and text and image blocks.⁵

The export leaves behind: most other page types (including store, portfolio, and calendar pages), extra blogs, dropdown menus, page headers and footers, drafts, audio and video blocks, your style settings, and your custom CSS.⁵

The surprise: exported images can come across as links back to Squarespace’s servers. Squarespace warns that when the export is imported into WordPress, those image links stop working once you close your site.⁵ Save every image before you cancel.

So a real move means capturing the live site, page by page, not just clicking export. Full list: What Squarespace’s Export Includes (and What It Leaves Behind)

The one thing that protects your rankings: redirects

Google ranks pages by their address. If your “Services” page lives at /services today and at /our-services after the move, Google sees a missing page and a brand-new one. The new one starts from scratch.

A 301 redirect fixes that. It tells Google and visitors “this page moved permanently, here’s where it went.” Google then passes the old page’s standing to the new address. Google recommends keeping these redirects in place for at least a year.¹

The safest plan has two parts:

1. Keep every address you can exactly the same. Same domain, same paths. These pages need no redirect at all.
2. Redirect everything that has to change. That usually includes blog and product addresses, files like PDFs, and any old redirects you set up inside Squarespace (under Settings › Developer Tools › URL Mappings).⁶ Those stop working the moment you leave, so copy them out first.

Then test every one. A redirect that sends people to the wrong page, or in a loop, is worse than none.

We wrote a full checklist with a free redirect map template: How to Move Off Squarespace Without Losing Google Rankings: The Redirect Checklist

Keep your domain and email working

This is where moves go wrong in a way that’s hard to undo.

• Your domain. If you bought it through Squarespace, you can keep it there and point it at your new site, or transfer it to another registrar. Domains usually can’t be transferred in the first 60 days after they’re registered or transferred, so check the date.⁷
• Your email. If you pay for Google Workspace through Squarespace, your email depends on your domain settings. Change the wrong setting and email stops. Copy your current email settings (the MX, SPF, and DKIM records) before you change anything.
• Separate bills. Cancelling your Squarespace website doesn’t cancel your domain, Google Workspace, Email Campaigns, or Acuity. Each is a separate subscription you cancel on its own. Automated email campaigns stop sending once the site goes offline.⁸

Step-by-step: Keep Your Domain and Email When You Leave Squarespace

The safe order to move

This order keeps your site and email running through the switch.

1. Get a baseline. Connect Google Search Console if you haven’t, and note which pages bring in traffic. This is how you’ll know the move worked.
2. List every address. Pull every page, post, file, and image address from your live site and sitemap, not just the export.
3. Copy your old redirects out of Squarespace’s URL Mappings.
4. Copy your domain and email settings somewhere safe.
5. Build the new site with the same addresses wherever possible.
6. Map and add redirects for every address that changes.
7. Check a private preview. Every page, on a phone and a laptop. Forms, booking, and videos too.
8. Switch the domain over, keeping email settings exactly as they were.
9. Test every redirect on the live site, and submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
10. Keep Squarespace running for a few weeks as a safety net. Cancel only after everything checks out, and after you’ve saved your images and files.

Do it yourself or get help?

Doing it yourself with Claude is possible. Savvy online business owners are already figuring out how to build sites with AI. Claude can rebuild a Squarespace site from its pages quite quickly. The building is the easy part. One owner wrote up their move from Squarespace to a site built with Claude.⁹ Building took two days. Getting it live took three more. Pages like /portfolio showed “not found,” the redirects didn’t cover every address in the sitemap, and the redirects got stuck in a loop with the new host’s own settings. They fixed all of it. But when Google finds a page showing “not found,” it removes that page from search results.¹⁰ Problems like these need catching before launch.

A realistic guide: Moving Squarespace to Claude Code Yourself

Getting help ranges a lot in price. One automated tool, BrowserCat, costs $49 to $149 and doesn’t mention redirects.¹¹ Agencies publish prices of up to about $800 for a small site (general website migrations, not Squarespace-specific)¹² and starting prices of $1,500 for a small brochure site and $3,500 for a larger marketing site.¹³ Some providers price the SEO work, including redirects, as separate line items, so ask what’s included.¹⁴ Full breakdown: What It Really Costs to Move a Squarespace Site

What we do: we move Squarespace sites into a site you own and edit with Claude. Every old link is mapped and tested, and if a redirect fails within 30 days, we fix it free. Your email keeps working, and you get a before-and-after report. It’s one fixed price, $1,495, or $995 if you let us publish your results. No sales calls. You’re done when you’ve made your first edit yourself.

Need something different? If your site has a store, member areas, or anything else unusual, if it’s on another platform like WordPress, Wix, or Webflow, or if you’d rather edit with a different AI tool, email our team at hello@promptablesites.com for a custom migration assessment.

After the move

Editing. You tell Claude what to change in plain words. It makes the change, shows you, and publishes when you say so. How to Edit Your Website by Talking to Claude

Speed. Plain-file sites are often faster on phones. In one test on Google’s own speed tool, our founder’s Squarespace site took 11.4 seconds to show its main content on mobile. This site, built the same way we build client sites, took 2.7.¹⁵ They’re different sites, and yours will be different too.

Maintenance on a schedule. Claude can also run on its own, on a schedule you set, like every Monday morning. It can review your posts, flag what’s out of date, and draft updates for you to approve. This feature, called routines, is in research preview on paid Claude plans.¹⁶ Run Your Website With a Team of AI Agents

Security. A site you own as plain files has no login page to break into, no database, and no plugins to update. The work moves to your accounts, so turn on two-step sign-in wherever it’s offered, including the email or Google account you use to sign in to Claude. Is a Site You Own as Safe as Squarespace?

Questions owners ask

Will I lose my Google rankings if I leave Squarespace? Not if you keep your domain, keep addresses the same where you can, and redirect every address that changes. Expect some movement for a few weeks or more while Google revisits your old addresses and swaps in the new ones. Google says this is normal during a move.¹

How long should I keep redirects? Google recommends at least one year.¹ On a site you own, there’s no reason to ever remove them.

Can I keep my domain name? Yes. You can leave it registered with Squarespace and point it at the new site, or transfer it away. Transfers usually aren’t possible within 60 days of registering or transferring a domain.⁷

Will my email stop working? Not if you copy your current email settings before changing anything and keep them exactly as they are. This is the step people most often get wrong.

What can’t move easily? Online stores, member areas, and paid courses are the hardest. They depend on Squarespace’s own systems, so they need a rebuild or a different tool, such as Shopify for a store. If your site has any of these, email hello@promptablesites.com for a custom migration assessment.

Do I need to tell Google I moved? If your domain stays the same, no. Google’s Change of Address tool is only for moving to a new domain.¹ Submit your new sitemap in Search Console and let Google find the redirects.

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