How to Submit Squarespace Sitemap to Google Search Console
Submitting a sitemap makes it easier for the search engines to access your site, meaning you can rank in the search engine results faster.
Here’s how to create a sitemap in Squarespace and how to add it to Google Search Console.
Submit your Squarespace sitemap in three simple steps
Step 1: Create a Google Search Console account
The first step is to create an account on Google Search Console (GSC). This is a tool that helps you measure your search traffic and improve your performance. If you’re serious about search engine optimization, it’s a must!
(If you already have a GSC account, move to the next step.)
To get started, go to the Google Search Console homepage and click Start Now. Enter your URL prefix in the box on the right-hand side and click Continue.
You’ll then be asked to verify ownership of your domain. You can do this in multiple ways.
By signing in to your Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager account
By associating a DNS record with Google – you need to sign into your domain name provider to do this
By adding an HTML tag to your homepage. You can do this by going to the Page menu, clicking the cog next to your homepage, choosing Advanced and adding the code to your header.
Once you’re done, click Verify, and your site will appear in GSC.
Step 2: Locate your Squarespace XML sitemap
Some online platforms don’t come with XML sitemaps; you have to create and upload them yourself.
All Squarespace sites come with XML sitemaps that are updated automatically, meaning one less thing for you to worry about!
You can view your sitemap by adding sitemap.xml to the end of your domain. For example, the Spark Plugin Squarespace sitemap URL is https://www.sparkplugin.com/sitemap.xml.
Check that your Squarespace sitemap is working and up to date – while Squarespace is good at updating your sitemap, it can take up to 24 hours in some cases. If you’re happy with it, you’re ready to add your sitemap to GSC.
Important note: Your site has to be public (not private, password protected, or in trial mode) to see your sitemap.
Step 3: Submit your Squarespace sitemap URL
Go to your GSC account and choose Sitemaps on the left-hand side of the page.
Add sitemap.xml to the Add a new sitemap section and click submit – don’t worry about adding your domain; GSC will deal with this.
You’ll see the following message if your sitemap upload is a success.
Google will regularly check your sitemap for updates, meaning you don’t have to re-submit it every time you publish a new page.
If you want to remove a Squarespace sitemap, click on it in GSC, select the three dots on the far-right-hand side of the page, and choose Remove sitemap.
And that’s all there is to it!
Squarespace sitemap FAQ
Got any additional questions about Squarespace XML sitemaps? You’ll find the answers here.
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is a list of webpages on your website, provided in a format known as extensible markup language (XML).
Your sitemap helps the search engines understand what pages are on your site, how they’re structured, and how they link together.
How does a sitemap work?
The search engines use crawlers (bots) to identify which pages to show in the search engine results. Usually these crawlers start on one page of your website and use the internal links they find to access other pages on your website.
A sitemap makes things easier as it acts as a big signpost, showing the crawlers which pages to look at and providing additional context about the pages on your site.
Do I need to submit a Squarespace sitemap?
You don’t have to submit your Squarespace sitemap to Google Search Console – the search engines will discover and crawl your website regardless.
However, submitting a sitemap to GSC has two key benefits.
It helps the search engines crawl your site, meaning pages will appear in the search engine results faster. This is especially helpful if you have a large site that’s larger than 500 pages, a complicated site structure, or ‘orphaned’ pages that aren’t linked to from other pages of your site
It can alert you if there are any issues with your Squarespace sitemap. For example, if your sitemap is formatted incorrectly or it contains pages that shouldn’t be there, like redirects
