Fix common problems that prevent your site or pages from showing up in search results.

Your site, or updated content, may not appear in Google search results if it's too new, its pages are hidden, or your content doesn't match popular search terms. Review Google’s indexing process, and the steps you can take to improve your site’s visibility.

Also try: Maintain your SEO ranking after moving or redesigning your site.

Check if Google indexed your site

First, search Google for site: followed by your site's exact domain name with no other words and no spaces. This shows every page on your site that’s currently included in Google's index.

Custom domain example:

site:yourdomain.com

Built-in domain example:

site:yourdomain.squarespace.com

Then, follow these links for next steps based on your results:

• No pages appear in results
• Some pages appear in results
• All pages appear in results, but not for other keyword searches
• Outdated content appears in results

No pages appear in Google results when I search for my domain

If no pages appear when you search for your domain:

• Ensure you have a paid subscription and a published site. Search engines won’t find trial sites.
• Remove passwords. If your site has a site-wide password or a page password on the homepage, remove the password. To check if your site has a password, open the site in a private browser window.
• Check noindex tags. If your site supports code injection, remove any noindex code from site-wide code injection, and from code injection for your homepage.
• Verify your site with Google Search Console, if you haven't already.
• Request Google to index your site to help your site appear in search results sooner.
• You can also verify with Bing Webmaster Tools.

Only some pages of my site appear in results

If specific pages don't appear when you search for your domain, check the following for each page that isn't appearing:

1. Open page settings.
2. In the General tab, ensure Enable is checked to confirm the page isn't disabled.
3. In the General tab, check for a page password. Remove it if there is one.
4. In the SEO tab, ensure Hide this page from search results isn't checked.
5. In the Advanced tab, remove any noindex code (if your site supports advanced code).
6. If the page is a blog, course, or videos page, open the Pages panel, then click the page. Check if the page has a paywall. Pages and member sites behind paywalls aren't indexed by search engines. Remove the page from the pricing plan to ensure it's indexed.

After you've checked the pages:

• Verify your site with Google Search Console, if you haven't already.
• Request Google to index your site to help any changes appear in search results sooner.
• You can also verify with Bing Webmaster Tools.

My site doesn't appear for specific keywords

If your site appears in search results for your domain but doesn't appear for keywords you expect visitors to use, your site is indexed but isn’t ranking for those keywords.

You can improve your visibility and better understand your visitors' search patterns:

• Search Keywords Analytics shows which search terms people use to find your site.
• Use targeted keywords strategically throughout your site’s text, headings, and SEO descriptions.

My site’s images don't appear in Google Images

Google uses different criteria for indexing images than it does for text. If none or only some of your images appear in Google Images:

• Ensure you're using high-quality, unique images relevant to your site content.
• Add targeted keywords to your filenames, captions, and alt text.

We can't control which images Google indexes. For example, if your site displays a set of similar images, Google may not index all of them. Learn more about best practices for Google Images.

Google Search results are showing outdated content

If your new content isn’t displaying, or deleted content is still displaying, this likely means Google needs to re-crawl and re-index your site. Squarespace doesn't have a say in how quickly this happens, but it usually takes some time.

To try and speed things up, submit your site to Google Search Console and request a re-index. The reindex process also applies to other search engines.

Other differences you might notice in search results

Even after your content is up to date, Google automatically generates some parts of the search result listing. We can’t control these, but you can try to influence them:

• Site name - The name shown at the top of your search result. Your site title can influence it, but Google ultimately determines what displays.
• Sitelinks - Links that appear under some search results. Google generates them automatically, typically for high-traffic sites.
• Descriptions - The text shown in search results is usually pulled from your page content, but you can suggest it using SEO titles and descriptions.

Tip: If you’re using a custom domain, you can hide your built-in Squarespace domain from search results.

How Google Search works

Google needs to crawl and index your site before it displays your content in search results. We can’t guarantee Google will crawl, index, or show your site in search results. These processes are managed entirely by Google. Learn more about how Google Search works.

Crawling

Google uses automated programs called “crawlers” to find new and updated pages across the web, which it then adds to its list of known pages. After Google identifies your page’s URL, it may crawl the page to find out what’s on it.

Google doesn’t crawl every page it finds. For example, it will skip pages where a site owner has restricted crawling, or pages protected by a password.

Indexing

After a page is crawled, Google analyzes the page’s content, images, and video files and stores that information in a large database called the Google index. We can’t control how often search engines, like Google, index your site. You can manually submit your content for indexing via Google Search Console to speed up the process, but we can’t guarantee it’ll happen instantaneously.

Search results

After a page is crawled and indexed, it can appear in Google search results. When a user enters a query, Google searches its index for the most relevant, high-quality content. Using keywords strategically across your site helps Google determine if your content matches what visitors are looking for.