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I've noticed the canonical issue for some years now, never made an issue until recently. Google and Bing finally caught up with the canonical issue and now everything is going sideways. One website that I manage have SEO description on the site root/home. in the sitemap /home priority is 1. So Bing and Google are ignoring it because it is canonical. Now the sitemap order that Squarespace generate is all random (order is for the weak) so now Google decides to look for a site description, and it does so by going from the top to bottom (yay the order is all sideways!!). The first on the list is the, but the blog page doesn't have SEO and it has a priority of 0.75 so it is ignored. The 2nd page is that of a podcast article (not first, not last, just one in the middle, as random as it can get), with a priority of 0.5. So Google decides to pick that one up and lo and behold my client website is currently owned by the guest on that podcast page. I kid you not.
I spent a couple of days analyzing and writing detailed step by step (with pictures) and a technical explanation of what happened and why is it happening and sent it to the support. Only to be pushed back and not reading a a single thing and just picking the first answer from their hat (One even suggested that SEO strategy is not a Squarespace support issue!!!). Eventually after a long day of battle a senior support person reached with all the introduction and credentials in place, the response was the following: "We tested it Facebook and works in Facebook, so if it works in Facebook this means the problem is with Google."
It took a lot of restraint to keep calm and request the issue to be raised to the engineers. Eventually it was forwarded but we were told not to expect any answer soon!!!
Yes I am dishing out. But God the level of stupidity is jarring. My client is losing traffic, quantifiable metrics we can see and measure from Google Search Console and all Squarespace have to say is to push back and shift the blame to an SEO strategy and Google.
I've had my fair share of issues with Squarespace and SEO in the past, and I've always managed to patch things up with a scotch tape. I could write my own sitemap.xml and give that to google search console instead. By seriously Squarespace GYST. Yes you have a well rounded CMS with solid backend and authoring tool, but claiming you are SEO optimized is the furthest from the truth. You are not SEO friendly or even optimized by a looooooooooong shot. Your SEO is stupid, there I said it, it is stupid and done by incompetence engineers, so grow up and Fix the problem rather than patching it.
This is the straw guys, GYST because life is too short to keep patching things up to cover for your incompetence. And if you think my words are harsh and out of line, well now you get a taste of what I go through trying to explain to my client that the advise and decision to build their website on Squarespace was faaaaaaaar better than building on WordPress, ohhh and praising the level of support (that once was and lost). Only to fail miserably when faced with something as catastrophic as displaying the wrong site brand and description with constant pushback from the (once was) legendary support.

I've noticed the canonical issue for some years now, never made an issue until recently. Google and Bing finally caught up with the canonical issue and now everything is going sideways. One website that I manage have SEO description on the site root/home. in the sitemap /home priority is 1. So Bing and Google are ignoring it because it is canonical. Now the sitemap order that Squarespace generate is all random (order is for the weak) so now Google decides to look for a site description, and it does so by going from the top to bottom (yay the order is all sideways!!). The first on the list is the, but the blog page doesn't have SEO and it has a priority of 0.75 so it is ignored. The 2nd page is that of a podcast article (not first, not last, just one in the middle, as random as it can get), with a priority of 0.5. So Google decides to pick that one up and lo and behold my client website is currently owned by the guest on that podcast page. I kid you not.
I spent a couple of days analyzing and writing detailed step by step (with pictures) and a technical explanation of what happened and why is it happening and sent it to the support. Only to be pushed back and not reading a a single thing and just picking the first answer from their hat (One even suggested that SEO strategy is not a Squarespace support issue!!!). Eventually after a long day of battle a senior support person reached with all the introduction and credentials in place, the response was the following: "We tested it Facebook and works in Facebook, so if it works in Facebook this means the problem is with Google."
It took a lot of restraint to keep calm and request the issue to be raised to the engineers. Eventually it was forwarded but we were told not to expect any answer soon!!!
Yes I am dishing out. But God the level of stupidity is jarring. My client is losing traffic, quantifiable metrics we can see and measure from Google Search Console and all Squarespace have to say is to push back and shift the blame to an SEO strategy and Google.
I've had my fair share of issues with Squarespace and SEO in the past, and I've always managed to patch things up with a scotch tape. I could write my own sitemap.xml and give that to google search console instead. By seriously Squarespace GYST. Yes you have a well rounded CMS with solid backend and authoring tool, but claiming you are SEO optimized is the furthest from the truth. You are not SEO friendly or even optimized by a looooooooooong shot. Your SEO is stupid, there I said it, it is stupid and done by incompetence engineers, so grow up and Fix the problem rather than patching it.
This is the straw guys, GYST because life is too short to keep patching things up to cover for your incompetence. And if you think my words are harsh and out of line, well now you get a taste of what I go through trying to explain to my client that the advise and decision to build their website on Squarespace was faaaaaaaar better than building on WordPress, ohhh and praising the level of support (that once was and lost). Only to fail miserably when faced with something as catastrophic as displaying the wrong site brand and description with constant pushback from the (once was) legendary support.

I've noticed the canonical issue for some years now, never made an issue until recently. Google and Bing finally caught up with the canonical issue and now everything is going sideways. One website that I manage have SEO description on the site root/home. in the sitemap /home priority is 1. So Bing and Google are ignoring it because it is canonical. Now the sitemap order that Squarespace generate is all random (order is for the weak) so now Google decides to look for a site description, and it does so by going from the top to bottom (yay the order is all sideways!!). The first on the list is the, but the blog page doesn't have SEO and it has a priority of 0.75 so it is ignored. The 2nd page is that of a podcast article (not first, not last, just one in the middle, as random as it can get), with a priority of 0.5. So Google decides to pick that one up and lo and behold my client website is currently owned by the guest on that podcast page. I kid you not.
I spent a couple of days analyzing and writing detailed step by step (with pictures) and a technical explanation of what happened and why is it happening and sent it to the support. Only to be pushed back and not reading a a single thing and just picking the first answer from their hat (One even suggested that SEO strategy is not a Squarespace support issue!!!). Eventually after a long day of battle a senior support person reached with all the introduction and credentials in place, the response was the following: "We tested it Facebook and works in Facebook, so if it works in Facebook this means the problem is with Google."
It took a lot of restraint to keep calm and request the issue to be raised to the engineers. Eventually it was forwarded but we were told not to expect any answer soon!!!
Yes I am dishing out. But God the level of stupidity is jarring. My client is losing traffic, quantifiable metrics we can see and measure from Google Search Console and all Squarespace have to say is to push back and shift the blame to an SEO strategy and Google.
I've had my fair share of issues with Squarespace and SEO in the past, and I've always managed to patch things up with a scotch tape. I could write my own sitemap.xml and give that to google search console instead. By seriously Squarespace GYST. Yes you have a well rounded CMS with solid backend and authoring tool, but claiming you are SEO optimized is the furthest from the truth. You are not SEO friendly or even optimized by a looooooooooong shot. Your SEO is stupid, there I said it, it is stupid and done by incompetence engineers, so grow up and Fix the problem rather than patching it.
This is the straw guys, GYST because life is too short to keep patching things up to cover for your incompetence. And if you think my words are harsh and out of line, well now you get a taste of what I go through trying to explain to my client that the advise and decision to build their website on Squarespace was faaaaaaaar better than building on WordPress, ohhh and praising the level of support (that once was and lost). Only to fail miserably when faced with something as catastrophic as displaying the wrong site brand and description with constant pushback from the (once was) legendary support.

I've noticed the canonical issue for some years now, never made an issue until recently. Google and Bing finally caught up with the canonical issue and now everything is going sideways. One website that I manage have SEO description on the site root/home. in the sitemap /home priority is 1. So Bing and Google are ignoring it because it is canonical. Now the sitemap order that Squarespace generate is all random (order is for the weak) so now Google decides to look for a site description, and it does so by going from the top to bottom (yay the order is all sideways!!). The first on the list is the, but the blog page doesn't have SEO and it has a priority of 0.75 so it is ignored. The 2nd page is that of a podcast article (not first, not last, just one in the middle, as random as it can get), with a priority of 0.5. So Google decides to pick that one up and lo and behold my client website is currently owned by the guest on that podcast page. I kid you not.
I spent a couple of days analyzing and writing detailed step by step (with pictures) and a technical explanation of what happened and why is it happening and sent it to the support. Only to be pushed back and not reading a a single thing and just picking the first answer from their hat (One even suggested that SEO strategy is not a Squarespace support issue!!!). Eventually after a long day of battle a senior support person reached with all the introduction and credentials in place, the response was the following: "We tested it Facebook and works in Facebook, so if it works in Facebook this means the problem is with Google."
It took a lot of restraint to keep calm and request the issue to be raised to the engineers. Eventually it was forwarded but we were told not to expect any answer soon!!!
Yes I am dishing out. But God the level of stupidity is jarring. My client is losing traffic, quantifiable metrics we can see and measure from Google Search Console and all Squarespace have to say is to push back and shift the blame to an SEO strategy and Google.
I've had my fair share of issues with Squarespace and SEO in the past, and I've always managed to patch things up with a scotch tape. I could write my own sitemap.xml and give that to google search console instead. By seriously Squarespace GYST. Yes you have a well rounded CMS with solid backend and authoring tool, but claiming you are SEO optimized is the furthest from the truth. You are not SEO friendly or even optimized by a looooooooooong shot. Your SEO is stupid, there I said it, it is stupid and done by incompetence engineers, so grow up and Fix the problem rather than patching it.
This is the straw guys, GYST because life is too short to keep patching things up to cover for your incompetence. And if you think my words are harsh and out of line, well now you get a taste of what I go through trying to explain to my client that the advise and decision to build their website on Squarespace was faaaaaaaar better than building on WordPress, ohhh and praising the level of support (that once was and lost). Only to fail miserably when faced with something as catastrophic as displaying the wrong site brand and description with constant pushback from the (once was) legendary support.