How to leave Squarespace cleanly
A practical UK guide for owners leaving Squarespace who want to keep their SEO, their email and their sanity through the move.
01 / What Squarespace gives you and what it does not
Squarespace is tidy on the way in. It is less tidy on the way out.
Squarespace is one of the better website builders if you intend to stay on it. The export story is less generous. Only some of your content comes out cleanly, products and galleries and index pages largely do not, and a Google Workspace account billed through Squarespace needs detaching before you can safely close the subscription.
None of that is a reason not to move. It just means the move is worth doing in the right order, with a plan for the bits that do not export, and a clear understanding of what is billed through where. The goal is a cleaner site than the one you left, with your rankings, your email, and your domain all intact.
This page walks through what to expect, what to do first, what to do last, and where most Squarespace migrations go wrong in practice.
02 / Six things to plan for
Where the careful work sits
Export coverage, domain ownership, email billing, URL preservation, image quality, and Search Console handover.
Squarespace exports about half of the site
Squarespace will export blog posts, basic pages and some images into a WordPress-compatible XML file. It does not export product pages, album pages, index pages, audio blocks, video blocks, portfolio pages or form submissions. For a careful rebuild, the export is useful as a content reference but rarely as a direct import.
Domain ownership and the registrar question
Squarespace acts as a registrar for domains bought through it, and also accepts domains pointed at it from elsewhere. If Squarespace is the registrar, you will need to unlock the domain and request an auth code before it can be moved. If the domain sits elsewhere, you only need to update the DNS records, which is a ten-minute job.
Email: Google Workspace through Squarespace
Squarespace resells Google Workspace, which means some owners have a Workspace account that bills through Squarespace. Cancelling the Squarespace subscription in that case can cancel the Workspace too. The fix is to move the Workspace billing onto a direct Google account before cancelling. The inbox stays live throughout.
Preserving URL structure
Squarespace URLs can be idiosyncratic, with /s/ prefixes or collection folders that are fine on Squarespace but clutter elsewhere. You have two options: mirror the old structure exactly to preserve SEO with zero redirect work, or tidy up and serve 301 redirects from each old URL to its new home. Either is defensible. What is not defensible is changing URLs without redirects.
Images and the re-export of originals
Squarespace compresses uploads through its own pipeline. Pulling images back off the site gives you compressed versions, not your originals. For commercial photography or portfolio work this matters and it is worth going back to the original files. For most service-business sites, the re-compressed images look fine on the new build.
Search Console and avoiding the indexing dip
After the cutover, a new sitemap needs to be submitted to Google Search Console and the old Squarespace property left in place for a month so that Google can follow the 301 redirects from old to new. Skipping this step is the most common cause of the temporary ranking dip people report after Squarespace migrations. Done properly, the dip is small and short.
03 / How we do the move
From map to cancelled subscription
Map what exists
We list every page on the Squarespace site, every indexed URL in Google, and every integration (Workspace email, Acuity scheduling, product pages, forms). The map becomes the migration plan. Nothing gets moved that has not been explicitly accounted for.
Rebuild and preserve URLs
We rebuild the site hand-coded on staging, preserving URL structure where it makes sense and planning 301 redirects where it does not. The Squarespace site stays live and untouched during this period.
Untangle the email billing
If Google Workspace is billed through Squarespace, we help you move it to direct Google billing first. This is the step most independent guides skip, and it is the one that breaks inboxes on cancellation day.
Cutover, Search Console, then cancel
DNS switches to the new host, the 301 redirects kick in, and we submit the new sitemap. We monitor Search Console for two to three weeks before cancelling the Squarespace subscription, and we time the cancel to after the annual renewal window where relevant.
FAQ
Common questions
Can I just export my Squarespace site and import it?
Partially. The built-in Squarespace export produces a WordPress-compatible XML file that covers blog posts, basic pages and some images. Products, galleries, albums, audio and video blocks, forms and many index pages do not come through. In practice we use the export as a content reference and rebuild pages cleanly on the new site, which usually results in a better site anyway.
What happens to my Google Workspace email?
It depends on where it is billed. If your Workspace is a direct Google account and only uses your domain, nothing needs to change. If it was set up through Squarespace and billed through them, we move the billing to a direct Google subscription before the Squarespace account is closed. The inbox, the history and the address all stay the same throughout.
Will I lose my SEO when I move off Squarespace?
Not meaningfully, if the migration is careful. Either we preserve the old URL structure exactly, in which case Google barely notices the move, or we clean up the URLs and put a 301 redirect on every old URL to its new home. A brief indexing lag of one to three weeks is normal and usually recovers fully. The cases where Squarespace migrations lose SEO permanently almost always involve URLs being changed with no redirects.
When should I cancel the Squarespace subscription?
Never on cutover day. The new site should be live and stable for at least a week, DNS should have propagated fully, and Search Console should show Google picking up the new URLs. If your domain is registered through Squarespace, transfer it out first, which takes roughly a week. Cancelling before the transfer completes can pull the domain down with the subscription.
What about my Acuity Scheduling integration?
Acuity is owned by Squarespace but billed as a separate product. It continues to work on the new site via an embed or a direct link, regardless of whether your Squarespace subscription is active. If you want to move off Acuity at the same time, that is a separate decision and we are happy to advise on the options.
Is there a refund if I cancel partway through an annual plan?
Generally no. Squarespace bills annual plans in advance and refunds are at their discretion, usually granted only within the first two weeks. The pragmatic approach is to plan the migration to complete near the end of the annual cycle so the remaining paid time acts as a safety net. We schedule cutovers with this in mind when the timing is flexible.
Ready to leave Squarespace cleanly?
Plans from £39/mo. We handle the rebuild, the redirect map, the email untangling, and the Search Console handover.