Every content management system handles redirects in a different way. Some have native features while others use plugins. Squarespace handles URL mapping in a particular way and in this post I’ll be sharing:
Where to find URL mappings in Squarespace
To create redirects in Squarespace, you need to find the URL Mappings section. Open up your Squarespace account. Go to “Website”. Click “Settings”. Go to “Advanced”. Click “URL Mappings”.
How to add redirects in the correct format
Squarespace requires the following format for redirects:
{old url} -> {new url} 301
This line is made up of four components:
- The old url
- A dash with a greater than sign to create an arrow (with no spaces in between those two characters)
- The new url
- The redirect type (301 is a permanent redirect and a 302 is a temporary redirect)
Here is an example:
/example-old-url -> /example-new-url 301
Squarespace doesn’t explicitly state that you need to use the relative URL, but I believe it’s best practice to do so and lessens the chance for mistakes.
Once you enter in your redirects, hit “save”. If there is an error, you’ll get a notification that says “please correct errors before saving”.
This is why you should use my free URL mapping template down below to ensure correct formatting!
Additional Squarespace Redirect Information
To redirect an entire folder or collection of URLs you can use a [name] variable. If you decided to switch from /blog to /articles and didn’t want to manually redirect every page, it would look like this:
/blog/[name] -> /articles/[name] 301
The last note I’ll make is that the URL mapping field has a size limit. Here’s a direct quote from their URL Redirects documentation page: ” The URL mappings field has a limit of 400 KB, which is usually around 2500 redirect lines. We recommend deleting inactive redirects to keep this area manageable.”
Gary Illyes of Google has stated it’s best practice to keep redirects in place for at least a year to transfer the full signal to Google of the new page location.
Free Squarespace URL Mapping Template
This template allows you to enter in your domain and paste in your old URLs, the new destination URL, and will automatically produce a list in Squarespace’s preferred formatting.
