simon.stjohn

I can only assume the failure to address the problems is the result of either: 1. Squarespace simply cannot fix the problems - their system is broken and unfixable; or 2. Refusal to do anything because they resent the criticism (you remember those children from school, right?) Surely it's not (2), so that leaves (1). Not good.

Hi @GlynMusica Thanks for your reply - and yes, its been going on for years and I can't understand why it has not been addressed. I have been with Squarespace for many years - I was one of the original clients in Australia, I suspect. With small projects it did not matter to me, but now I am building a travel website I just can't justify staying around when Core Web Vitals are so poor and are having an impact on my rankings. Serious business websites can't justify investing staff, tools to research and produce content only to have the website itself penalised for poor performance. Squarespace can't even manage to integrate a simple process like image optimisation like https://shortpixel.com/, let alone address LCP and other core web vitals. And I feel I am being more than fair just addressing the fundamental deficiency of CWV. I am not even mentioning the lack of other basic tools necessary to operate a content business link internal linking, SEO optimisation, etc. I realise many will say I am wanting more from a tool that 'makes it so easy' for people to run a website. However, in today's competitive SEO landscape, unless you are a rare business that does not want to gain any traffic from search engines you are starting gagged, bound and jail-locked off the first page of the search results for competitive terms because its fairly certain your competitors will be outperforming you on CWV, even if you beat them on all the other metrics like content optimisation, content quality, etc.

Hi Henry Unfortunately Web Core Vitals are a big deal and no matter how good a job we do on-page, quality content etc, if the Core Web Vitals are poor Google is marking your site down right now - and will be even more so from next year. I am totally understanding of those who have invested in the platform, either in terms of site content (as I have) or as developers of plugins, design services etc. It is indeed an awkward situation. But the bottom line is that unless SP solves the terrible performance - particularly on mobile - customers are being placed at a significant disadvantage and their results in the SERPs is are being marked down. To be very clear, Core Web Vitals are a ranking factor in the Google algo. "Google's Core Web Vitals first became a ranking factor back in 2021. In February 2022, the change was fully rolled out to all mobile and desktop searches" according to Search Engine Land. And here's what Google says: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitals And no, it's not an issue for the 'top 5%'. It's an issue for anyone who needs their website to appear on page one of Google results. The only folks it does not matter to might someone who is not interested in generating traffic from search engines. That could I guess be someone using a SP site for an internal company website, for example. But ewven then, if speed and performance on mobile is an issue then it might still be a problem. The time for sugar-coating has to stop. Squarespace needs to do something.

it will work if anyone is on 7.0 and wants to give it a try - it just won;t work for SP 7.1

I have been trying to solve the problem of poor core web vitals for my SP sites for some time, looking at services that might help (that turned out not to be possible to implement (see this post) because of the structure of Squarespace - not having access to template code in 7.1). Core Web Vitals to Become More Important in 2024 As this post describes (as do many others, On May 10, 2023, Google announced that INP will replace FID in the Core Web Vitals in March 2024. Whether we like it or not Google has put us on notice that CWV will matter in the future. It's no longer good enough for SP support to reply with the suggestion we ''çheck our image sizes'' or imply that Googles CWV in Lighthouse are overly aggressive or sensitive or whatever. With 95% of search, it doesn't matter whether we like Google's method of assessing CWV.....what they say goes and platforms like SP need to get on top of their poor performance. I think anyone on Squarespace with more than just a small hobby site needs to look very carefully at their site CWV and decide now whether to move to another platform, because moving takes time. I definitely want to have the matter resolved before March 2024. For myself I am looking to move to Wordpress. Not only can I get high CWV but there are other bonuses, including many tools that I can connect to a WP site (like writing/ content updating tools) that are just not possible with Squarespace. It would be great to hear SP announce a commitment to improve the CWV metrics for their platform but I suspect we will hear nothing. Interested to hear what others think - I realise we've all spent a lot of time and energy invested in SP so it's tempting to find excuses for them but I think it's time those of us who are thinking of moving speak up in the hope there might be some commitment to fix the significant problems in speed and performance that Squarespace has.

Hi @SEOSpace_Henry Just an update, this failed in the end. The issue was that they need to add code in two places: 1. The Code Injection -> Header (no problem) and that produced some improvement in speed. 2. They needed to have access to the templates themselves to perform some optimisations (which they do not specify what exactly) and unfortunately in 7.1 we do not have access to the templates. As a result, the installation failed to produce the improvement required to justify the expenditure. Where I am at with this now is that I have made the decision to leave Squarespace and migrate to Wordpress - a bit of a big project but in the end all the failings of SP in terms of Core Web Vital performance. As this post describes (as do many others, On May 10, 2023, Google announced that INP will replace FID in the Core Web Vitals in March 2024. I think anyone on Squarespace with more than just a small hobby site needs to look very carefully at their site CWV and decide now whether to move because moving takes time and I definitely want to have the matter resolved before March 2024. It would be great to hear SP announce a commitment to improve the CWV metrics for their platform but I suspect we will hear nothing.

@tuanphan Just wondering if you might have an idea what I can do to fix the issue in my last post on this? Would be very grateful for any tips! Cheers Simon

Hi all, just wondering when you update a blog do you leave the original blog post date or change it to the date you've updated? I have seen on blogs where they have BOTH 'Originally published' and 'Updated" dates but I can't see a way to do this in Squarespace. So interested to hear what others are doing!

Hi @SEOSpace_Henry I have gone for a 7 day trial and I am going to post results. They are half-way through installation (some code goes in the Code Injection, header, and other code is supposed to go in the template itself but it seems they have hit a snag because in 7.1 there is no developer access to the template....so not sure what will happen there) but I will def come back here and post update once the install has been completed. The part-install has already bought the desktop speed into the green and mobile to 48, so with the full implementation they say mobile should go into the green as well. They are quite open in saying desktop should be in the 90s but mobile in the range 50-60 - seems like there's only so much they can fix on mobile because SP is so bloated. But you just need it to hit 50+ to get in the green and that not only improves for users but also in the eyes of the digital overlord (Google)

Hi all, Just wondering if anyone here has used https://websitespeedy.com/ and what results and would you recommend to deal with poor Core Web Vitals? (Just to clarify, I am aware of the optimisation we as customers can take with our site (like optimising images), I am looking for a tool that might help with all the backend problems that slow down Squarespace that have been well-discussed elsewhere in the forum)

I want to add my voice to this appalling situation. After so many years and given the financial success of Squarespace, the fact they have not found a solution to the obvious flaws in their backend that cause most of these problems is unconscionable. The most (un)helpful advice they give is to reduce image sizes, which I already do - but most of the problem, as highlighted by many more knowledgeable than myself in the comments above, has to do with issues like loading unnecessary libraries etc. I will not be building my next site on SS. I know going to Wordpress will have its issues, but I can't stay in the same boat and continue financially rewarding a company that spends large amounts on marketing to expand its client base instead of investing in improving their system. In the end, like it or not, the pressure we face as customers of Squarespace is that Google is marking down our sites for poor performance and it is hard to justify continuing to support a platform that devalues my efforts and sees my penalised by Google. Anyone from Squarespace care to comment - in particular not to argue with the hundreds of comments here, but to tell us what you are doing to fix these deficiencies - or if you intend to keep doing nothing?

@derricksrandomviews Thank you so much - I am very grateful to you for your help....Really appreciated! Simon

@derricksrandomviews That sounds a great way to go rather than a 404.....do you might if I stretch the friendship and ask how I would do that? I tried googling for instructions but results were more along the lines of customizing a SP 404 page....

Hi @derricksrandomviews Thank you for the advice and taking the time to reply. Do I need to do a 301 redirect of https://baligram.me/baligram to https://baligram.me as well?

Hi everyone... When you set a page as the home page, you end up with two URLs....in my case https://baligram.me and https://baligram.me/baligram Are the same page.... ....because the page /baligram is set as my Home Page. Isn't that a problem for SEO in terms of duplicate content? What do others do - redirect https://baligram.me/baligram to https://baligram.me?

I have learned recently that some blog commenting tools are not readable by Google and therefore having comments using them would not enhance SEO for a page. I am wondering if anyone knows whether Squarespace's comments are easily indexed by Google?

@Gunthorian Thanks so much for your replies! I have actioned your suggestion (thank you!) and requested re-indexing of the home page. Will be interesting to see how it goes.... Thanks again for a great possible solution - I understand there's no guarantee Google will follow this but at least its a way to try and make a change!

Hi @tuanphan So thanks to Creedon, I got the code in the right place 🤪 Now what I find is when I click on the image in the card on the example page https://baligram.me/day-tours/top-20-bali-tours-on-getyourguide it's just opening the URL https://baligram.me/day-tours/undefined So I am wondering how its supposed to work - is it supposed to be picking up the URL from another element that is not defined maybe?

Hi @creedon Oh My goodness - what a dumb moment that was! Thanks so much for the heads up mate.....!

Hi @tuanphan Thank you so much! I tried this and when I went to save the CSS it returned the error: Syntax Error on line 178 And this line had the start of your code <!-- Make link invisible --> So I am wondering if there is a problem with that line or if I needed to add something or do something different?

Hi Kevin, How interesting - great news for you! I wonder if it has something to do with the Google Core Algorithm update that started on 18th and 19th August and is rolling out? What I have since found is I am not the only one in my niche with this issue - including a massive news site....so that is interesting. Would be great to hear back if you notice all your other pages 'catch up' in the next while.....

Hi @UFA yeah, its incredibly annoying kevin, hey. I will raise a ticket (again) with SP and if I find any answer I will post here I think it matters because it is a small factor in improving SERP clickthrough and every little win matters One tip I found was having a solid colour logo/ favicon that really stands out in the SERPs - mine is a purple 'B'

Hi @tuanphan Thanks so much - it is https://baligram.me/day-tours/top-20-bali-tours-on-getyourguide

@tuanphan Got it - thanks for confirming! So what would the script be to turn link to image and CSS to make the link invisible?

Hi @tuanphan Thanks again for helping me out! When you say add link to subtitle, would that be wording, like the '#1 Top Pick' or the 'Instagram highlights tour' or something else? And then what would the script be to turn link to image and CSS to make the link invisible?