How to Migrate to Squarespace

managed platform. That’s the tradeoff. You get stability and lower maintenance, but you accept limits on customization.

You should probably migrate if…

• Your site mainly includes pages with content, such as a Home page, an About page, Services, a portfolio, a blog, and a few landing pages.
• You want a simpler structure with fewer options, fewer fragile parts, and a cleaner way to edit.
• You’re a small team, and non-technical people need to update the site without accidentally wrecking layouts.
• Your store is straightforward, meaning shipping is simple, product variants are manageable, and you are not dependent on a heavy app stack.
• You’re tired of ongoing maintenance, including plugin updates, security patches, performance issues, and vendor sprawl.

Think twice if…

• Your WordPress site runs on custom functionality, such as custom post types, membership or LMS plugins, directories, or deeper database logic, because importers bring over content but not the system that makes it work.
• Your ecommerce is app-dependent, relying on bundles, subscriptions, multi-warehouse inventory, complex discount logic, or multi-currency workflows, which usually turns the move into a full re-platforming project.
• You need a truly custom CMS. Squarespace is excellent for standard pages, posts, and products, but it is not designed to mimic a custom database as WordPress (with custom post types) or Webflow CMS can.
• You have a very high content volume, because while hundreds of posts are doable, the cleanup and redirect work becomes a real project.

Migrations go best when you treat them like a small product launch.

Good times to migrate:

• A low-traffic period for your business (often January for retail; slower months for B2B).
• When you can block out 3–5 days for migration + testing.
• When you can handle a few days of launch-week support.

Avoid migrating right before:

• A big sale or product drop.
• A press mention or campaign.
• A fundraising push.

Non-negotiable: Keep your old site live until the Squarespace site is launched and verified.

Most migration-related SEO damage isn’t because your content got worse. It’s because continuity got severed. When Google, backlinks, and internal links can’t find the same URLs and signals they knew before, rankings drop even if the site looks better.

Traffic risks (what causes ranking drops)

• URL changes without redirects. Google and external links still point to your old URLs, so the authority doesn’t carry over cleanly.
• Internal links still point to old paths. Blog posts often contain hard-coded links that quietly break after migration, which weakens crawlability and user flow.
• Metadata disappears. Page titles and meta descriptions often need to be re-entered manually, and missing metadata can hurt search click-through rates.
• Structured data gets lost. If you relied on custom schemas like FAQ, reviews, or events, they often need to be rebuilt because they don’t transfer automatically.

Operational breakage (what causes “the site is live but broken”)

• Forms don’t migrate. They have to be rebuilt and reconnected, including notifications, storage, and integrations.
• Commerce settings reset. Shipping, taxes, checkout emails, and policies usually require manual re-entry and careful testing.
• Tracking is missing. GA4 and ad pixels don’t automatically carry over, which means you can launch without analytics or conversion tracking.
• Imported pages land as “Not Linked.” The pages exist but aren’t in navigation, so they’re easy to miss during QA and can end up effectively orphaned.

Step 1: Audit your current site (URLs + SEO basics)

Goal: Build a list of the pages that matter so you can redirect and QA them.

Do this in three passes, because each one catches different URLs:

1. Google Search Console: Export indexed pages from Search Console (you likely have this if you’ve done SEO). Then export your top pages from the Performance report for a recent window (start with the last 3 months). This shows what Google actually cares about right now.
2. Analytics: Export your top landing pages (last 90 days is usually a solid baseline). These are your real traffic drivers.
3. A site crawl: Use a crawler, or at a minimum your XML sitemap, to pull a full list of internal URLs. This catches forgotten pages, old posts, and orphan URLs.

Now fill your spreadsheet and mark High Priority items:

• Top landing pages
• Backlink targets (pages other sites link to)
• Conversion pages (Contact, Booking, Pricing, Checkout, lead magnets)

Step 2: Build your Squarespace skeleton first (structure before content)

Start a Squarespace trial and build the structure while the site is private.

Create:

• Main navigation + footer navigation
• Core pages (Home, About, Services, Contact)
• Blog page and/or Store page (if needed)
• Global styles (fonts, colors, buttons, spacing)

Helpful rule: Do global styling early so you don’t have to redesign every page individually later.

Keep it private while building

• Use site availability/password protection.
• If your old site has “discourage indexing” settings or an SEO plugin, don’t change anything on the old site yet. Keep it stable until launch.

Step 3: Migrate content (import what you can, rebuild the rest)

Different platforms require different approaches, but the goal is the same:

1. Get content into Squarespace
2. Clean it up
3. Fix internal links
4. Confirm assets are actually hosted and loading correctly

Content QA checklist (every platform)

• Headings (H1/H2/H3) are intact
• Images display (no broken links)
• Internal links work (or are covered by redirects)
• Downloads still exist (PDFs, menus, brochures)
• Embedded blocks render (YouTube, maps, forms, widgets)
• No leftover “platform artifacts” (shortcodes, placeholder text, broken embeds)

Step 4: Rebuild functionality (forms, store logic, integrations)

This is where migrations fail quietly.

Forms

• Recreate every form (contact, lead magnet, quote, booking).
• Confirm submission destinations (email, Sheets, Mailchimp, Zapier).
• Run test submissions and verify delivery.

Commerce

• Re-enter operational settings (import does not carry business logic).
• Rebuild shipping, taxes, policies, payments, and store emails.
• Recreate discounts/coupons if used.
• Sanity-check variants, pricing, and inventory.

Tracking

• Install and verify GA4.
• Install and verify ad pixels.
• Recheck key events (forms, purchases, primary CTAs).

Step 5: SEO setup (keep signals stable)

You’re trying to reduce change during the platform switch.

Before launch:

• Keep the same domain (if possible)
• Copy Title Tags and Meta Descriptions for high-priority pages
• Confirm readable page URLs (slugs)
• Ensure a sitemap exists at /sitemap.xml

Internal link cleanup:

If your content contains hard-coded links to old URLs, update them or ensure redirects are in place.

Prioritize:

• Navigation links
• Footer links
• In-content links (especially blog posts)

Step 6: 301 redirects (the actual SEO safety net)

This is the most important step for traffic preservation.

In Squarespace: Settings → Developer Tools → URL Mappings [VERIFY: exact label/location if it differs by account.]

Use this format:

/old-path -> /new-path 301

Examples:

• /about-us -> /about 301
• /2023/10/my-post -> /blog/my-post 301
• /products/red-shirt -> /shop/p/red-shirt 301

Step 7: Transfering your domain

You typically have two options:

Option A: Connect your domain (recommended for launches)

• Keep billing at your registrar (GoDaddy/Namecheap/etc.)
• Point DNS records to Squarespace. This is usually faster, safer, and easier to roll back.

Option B: Transfer your domain

• Move billing/management to Squarespace. Transfers can take up to ~15 days and are rarely a good “launch-day” plan.

Note: Don’t break email

If you use Google Workspace or Outlook email on your domain:

• Screenshot your current DNS records before making changes.
• Make sure MX records stay intact.
• If you use SPF/DKIM/DMARC records, keep those too. [VERIFY: record names needed vary by email provider.]

Step 8: Post-launch validation

Once the site is live (and SSL is active):

• Click your top old URLs (from your spreadsheet). Confirm they 301 to the correct new page.
• Check Search Console for Not Found (404) issues. Add redirects immediately.
• Submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
• Verify GA4 real-time traffic is recording.
• For stores: place a test order end-to-end.

1. WordPress → Squarespace

The Verdict: Content transfers, design doesn’t. Your blog posts and pages will transfer automatically, but your WordPress theme and layout cannot be imported. You will need to recreate your site’s look using Squarespace’s design tools.

When this move makes sense

• Your site primarily consists of standard pages and blog posts.
• You want to reduce maintenance (no more plugin updates, hosting issues, security concerns, etc.).

When to reconsider

• Your site relies heavily on custom post types, complex database relationships, or LMS/Membership logic that Squarespace doesn’t natively support.

What Imports vs. What Doesn’t

Imports Well	Does Not Import
Standard Pages & Blog Posts	Theme styling & CSS
Categories & Tags	Elementor/Divi layouts
Standard Comments	Plugin-specific data (SEO fields, Forms)
Attached Images	Custom Post Types

Common Cleanup Tasks

1. Shortcode: You will likely see artifacts like [gallery ids=”123”] or [contact-form-7] in your text. These must be removed & replaced manually.
2. Featured Images: Occasionally, featured images fail to attach to blog posts during import. Check these immediately.
3. Layout Rebuild: WordPress content usually imports as a single text block. You will need to use Fluid Engine to recreate your columns and layouts.

2. Wix → Squarespace

The Verdict: The Manual Rebuild. Like Squarespace, Wix does not generate standard HTML/CSS code that is easily exportable, so automated migration is limited.

The Strategy

Treat this as a new build. Focus on getting your site structure right in Squarespace first, then move content page-by-page.

How to Move Content

• Text: Copy and paste manually.
• Images: You must download your images from Wix and re-upload them to Squarespace.
  • Tip: Do not drag-and-drop images from the browser; download the actual file to ensure quality.
• Products: You can export Wix products to a CSV. While you can import this CSV into Squarespace, you will likely need to reformat the column headers to match Squarespace’s requirements.
• The Blog: This is the hardest part. Wix does not export blog posts to a compatible format. For large blogs, you may need to use an RSS feed scraper or hire a migration specialist. For smaller blogs, copy-paste is safer.

3. Shopify → Squarespace

The Verdict: Data moves, operations do not. Your catalog will transfer, but your operational logic (shipping, taxes, apps) will need to be reconfigured.

What Moves

• Product Data: Titles, descriptions, prices, and SKUs import relatively well via CSV.

Critical Warnings

1. The Image Link Risk: Shopify exports often reference images via URL (hosted on Shopify). If you cancel your Shopify account before Squarespace has fully pulled and processed those images, the links will break.
   • Action: Keep your Shopify store active until you have verified every product image in Squarespace.
2. Variants: Squarespace limits variants per product to 100 and option types to 3 (e.g., Size, Color, Material). If your Shopify store uses complex apps to exceed these limits, the import will fail or truncate data.
3. URL Structures: Shopify uses /products/name. Squarespace uses /commerce-page-slug/name. You must set up 301 redirects, especially if you rely on SEO traffic.

4. Webflow → Squarespace

The Verdict: This is a rebuild migration. You can bring over your domain and, if you run a store, you can import products via CSV, but you can’t import your Webflow layout, design, fonts, or other site content.

How to migrate:

• Build your new Squarespace site first (template + pages + styling) while keeping it private with a site password, and keep your Webflow site online until the Squarespace version is ready to launch.
• Then import products (if applicable) using a Webflow product CSV, and recreate everything else by rebuilding pages/sections and copying content over (Squarespace specifically recommends stripping formatting when pasting text to avoid bringing messy HTML).
• Once the Squarespace site is complete, move your domain (transfer or connect), set up URL redirects to preserve old links (catalog your URL structure in a spreadsheet while the old site is still live), upgrade to a paid plan, publish, and then cancel Webflow.

What you can move:

• Domains (transfer or connect).
• Products (via CSV export from Webflow → import into Squarespace).

What you should expect to rebuild:

• Page layouts, styling, fonts, and all non-product content (including CMS/blog content).

Quick notes: GoDaddy, Hostinger builder, Carrd, and More

• GoDaddy Website Builder: Manual rebuild. Domain connection can be straightforward, but be careful with email DNS.
• Hostinger Website Builder: Most builders don’t provide meaningful exports. Treat it like a rebuild and save assets before cancelling.
• Carrd: Often a one-page to multi-page expansion. You can’t 301 redirect anchor links (#section), only page paths.