As your business grows, website changes are inevitable. Whether you’re restructuring your site, removing outdated pages, or adjusting URLs, you want to ensure site visitors still find expected information. To do this, you need to understand how Squarespace redirects work.

By default, Squarespace does not automatically create a 301 redirect when a URL (or web page address) changes. This means modifying or deleting a URL breaks existing links to that page unless you create a redirect. Fortunately, Squarespace offers an easy method to redirect or map individual page URLs, subfolder contents (like blogs or portfolios), and entire domains to their appropriate destinations.

How to do 301 Redirects on Squarespace

• 301 Redirects for URLs: To redirect an individual page URL or a collection of pages (such as an entire blog), visit Settings > Developers Tools > URL Mappings. See below for how to properly format your redirects.

• Domain Redirects: Visit Settings > Domains, and add a domain you own. Any connected domain will automatically redirect to your primary domain.

When to use 301, 302 , or 404?

Before getting into the specifics of formatting Squarespace redirects, you’ll want to understand common status codes, or server responses, and what they represent.

Squarespace users have the ability to implement three types of status codes: 301, 302, and 404. Deciding which code is appropriate will be based on whether your content is permanently or temporarily moving, or if the content will no longer exist.

Tip: Your Squarespace sitemap is automatically updated as pages are added or removed.

How to Format Squarespace Redirects

To redirect an individual page URL or a collection of pages (such as an entire blog), visit Settings > Developers Tools > URL Mappings.

Regarding subfolders: In the case of blogs, stores, events, galleries, or portfolios, instead of manually redirecting every single page within a collection (or subfolder/subdirectory), you can use the [name] variable to redirect all URLs within the subfolder to a different subfolder.

Each Squarespace URL redirect is added on a new line. Formatting examples:

• Single page examples:

  /old-url -> /new-url 301
  /blog/old-post -> /blog/new-post 301
  /store/old-product -> /store/new-product 301

• Subfolder or collection (blogs, events, galleries, etc.) example:

  /old-blog -> /new-blog 301 
  /old-blog/[name] -> /new-blog/[name] 301 

• 7.0 store and product example:

  /old-store -> /new-store 301
  /old-store/[name] -> /new-store/[name] 301

• 7.1 store example, note the “/p/” in the product URL path:

  /old-store -> /new-store 301
  /old-store/p/[name] -> /new-store/p/[name] 301

• 7.0 store moved to 7.1, note “/p/”:

  /old-store -> /new-store 301 
  /old-store/[name] -> /new-store/p/[name] 301

• If a collection page URL changes AND an individual item URL changes, order the redirects like this, with specific redirects above the general catch-all redirect:

  /old-blog -> /new-blog 301
  /old-blog/old-post -> /new-blog/new-post 301
  /old-blog/[name] -> /new-blog/[name] 301 

• If moving from a platform where blogs were not in a subfolder structure, again be mindful of the order of redirects:

  /[name] -> /blog/[name] 301

• To redirect to a site’s homepage, use just a slash:

  /old-page -> / 301

• To redirect to an external site or page, you will link to the full URL:

  /old-url -> https://external-site.com 301

Keep in mind: After redirecting any content, it is normal for Google to continue to show old URLs in search results. The older URLs will fade away in time without you doing anything.

⚠️ Caution: Some Squarespace marketers recommend a method of using 301 redirects to “shorten” affiliate links, or make “pretty links.” This might be okay for some affiliate programs, but this practice is prohibited by Amazon’s policies. Unfortunately, there is a lot of incorrect advice on YouTube—some because videos are simply out-of-date and some because it is an easier platform for beginner marketers to promote themselves on.

Option: Squarespace’s documentation suggests using URL paths (as shown above) for both the source and the destination. This is straightforward and easy for do-it-yourself SEO maintenance. But on Squarespace this approach introduces an unnecessary extra redirect due to a protocol downgrade. If desired, you can use the absolute URL (full URL) for the destination to prevent the extra redirect. This ensures a more efficient, direct path to the new content. For example:

/old-url -> https://yoursite.com/new-url 301

How to Redirect Domains or Change Domains

To redirect additional domains to your site OR change a Squarespace domain name, visit Settings > Domains.

You can redirect multiple domains to your Squarespace site, then choose one as your primary or preferred domain. Squarespace automatically redirects any connected domains to your chosen primary domain. This ensures a consistent user experience without any other manual configuration on your part.

Tip: Changing a primary domain is often due to a rebranding effort, which usually includes an update to site structure and URLs. For example, perhaps https://OLDsite.com/about changes to https://NEWsite.com/team. In this case, you’d connect both domains to Squarespace and write a 301 redirect:

/about -> /team 301

⚠️ IMPORTANT: If your small business has an established website and you’re unfamiliar with website migrations or redesigns, expert migration assistance is recommended if changing domains, moving sites, or initiating major overhauls.

Removing “www” From a Domain

You’ve likely noticed many new websites launch without “www” in their website address. If you are publishing a Squarespace site and want to remove “www” from a domain, simply switch the prefix toggle on the domains panel.

Whether you use the optional “www” subdomain or not, Squarespace automatically redirects to your preferred URL—you do not need to create URL redirects associated with this change.

Note that making this change to an existing business site can have consequences, consult a Squarespace SEO expert to ensure the proper steps are addressed.

Moving a site or changing a domain?

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Best Practices for Squarespace Redirects

First, study URL best practices before making URL changes. And you can learn more in our beginner’s 301 redirect guide. Google also provides in-depth resources on Redirects and Search as well as Domain Changes and Site Moves.

• Keep redirects relevant: Redirect users to a page with similar content. Again, Squarespace’s advice to indiscriminately redirect to a homepage can be ignored—take the time to do proper research and analysis.

• Update internal links: For best performance, you want to reduce reliance on redirects. Update your internal links to point directly to new URLs.

• Avoid loops: Ensure that you aren’t redirecting one URL to another, then redirecting back to the original URL (A > B > A). Squarespace has some precautionary measures in place to prevent accidental looping, but they still should be avoided.

• Avoid chains: Avoid creating chains of redirects (A > B > C). Not only can they slow down the user experience, but they can also dilute SEO value.

• Test: Always test your redirects. A mistyped URL or syntax error will lead to broken redirects. Squarespace redirects take effect immediately, so you can test as you write them. When testing, you’ll see a 404 page if a redirect is activated more than once within a short period of time, this is expected functionality to prevent redirect loops.

• Audit your redirects: Periodically review your URL mappings to ensure they’re still relevant and working correctly. Remove outdated redirects that no longer serve a purpose to ensure you stay within Squarespace’s limits.

Conclusion

Redirects play a key role in maintaining user experience and SEO integrity. Squarespace offers an easy dashboard for managing redirects, but their correct usage comes down to the site administrator’s knowledge and foresight.

Equip yourself with the right information, regularly audit your URL mappings, and remember: proactive website management today can save you from reactive troubleshooting tomorrow. If you’re unsure or feel overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to seek expert advice or assistance.

Redirect questions?

We can review your redirects or help you expertly move a site.