Gumbalaya

Hi @simon.stjohn - It's a shame to see you're moving away from Squarespace to WordPress because of this - best of luck!
I think it depends upon your priorities and skillset. I believe SQSP is better for 95% of users because of how easy it is to use, the community, security and suite of features.
If you're in the top 5%, a competitive niche and are pushing across all fronts, then WordPress, Webflow etc. may be a better option.
That being said, SQSP should 100% look at improving their CWV metrics as there are key areas of SEO they are lacking, this being one of them.
I'm soon releasing a study looking at over 20,000 Squarespace websites to reveal what gets results and what's different with the top 10% of websites.
In short, the findings are that better on-page SEO, more high-quality content, and high DR backlinks lead to more traffic - this isn't really surprising tbh! 
Imo, if you nail the above, it doesn't really matter what website builder or CMS you use. 

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.

I'm not sure Squarespace is up to that level of customization.

You would have to put certain blogs on a different blog page within a members area:
https://www.squarespace.com/ecommerce/membership-sites

I am facing the same issue it's saying use images in next served formats like WebP but unfortunately we have to wait for the developers to allow the format to be used in Squarespace

Sent, thanks for the boilerplate

I received the same canned response months ago. After I linked back to this thread here, they promised to hand it over to their development team but that was it. No follow up, no beep.
i think they’re ashamed and so they should be. Not for difficult technical issues but for ignorant behavior towards their customers.

Sent, thanks for the boilerplate

I've been reporting this search bug since 2000 and they still haven't fixed it. 
My only guess is that engineering is unable to fix it due to it breaking other things or they don't think search is important enough to dedicate resources to fixing it.

I am so frustrated by SquareSpace's built-in search functionality on our website (https://www.stresslesscamping.com). When we click on the search icon and put in terms that I know are on the site sometimes it returns no results, sometimes it returns only partial results. 
The majority of the time I have to click the icon, search for content, there will literally be NO results, then I try again and that's when it shows the results even with the same words. 
Our site gets a lot of traffic in our space and people search out various relevant terms and leave frustrated. This is enough to make me consider changing site providers. Is there an update/change I can implement?
I do also have a custom Google search on the site but it's much lower on the page, however it works every time. But the search button is very convenient at the top of the page. I wouldn't mind if I could change the little icon at the top to go to the Google search if that were possible instead.
But, seriously, we live in the world of search. I hope SquareSpace does something to enable their search function to actually work. Many of our site's visitors have told me that they have this issue and it really is affecting our income for people not being able to find things that are there. 
Thanks for any input and tips. 

maybe the only way square space will take this seriously is if we make our feelings known outside of this forum
trust pilot reviews at a 1  1/2 stars for SS -https://au.trustpilot.com/review/www.squarespace.com  and I've just added another chop in its star rating 

+1
Please fix this issue. This is basic stuff guys!
Please stop everything else and repair this!

@cami_leisk
I wouldn't hold my breath. The issue has been going on for years and SS has not indicated an interest in fixing it.
You don't have to leave the platform to get search. Use an external service to handle your search.

Please fix this Squarespace -- I have several clients that I might influence to move to a different platform if this issue isn't resolved soon. This is basic functionality -- and is currently costing my clients money and reflects poorly on me that I have encouraged the use of squarespace.  

Poor show Squarespace. I'd say this was a basic site requirement these days.

Same - having severe issues with this!

Can someone from Squarespace chime in on this thread and confirm that search will be fixed or not? Something solidly definitive on this topic would be great. 
 

Site URL: https://www.oryxdentalsoftware.com/
Hello,
The search function is not working. It doesn't show results even if the word exists. This is very bad and cost businesses potential clients that might exit the website.
Is there any fix?

Squarespace please prioritize and fix search for 7.1 

I just discovered this issue yesterday while trying to implement search into a school's website. This was Squarespace's response. TLDR: we aren't fixing this, go ahead and use our broken feature because not enough people are complaining about it.
--
Hi there,
 
This is Ryan from the Portland office, I am following up from our chat earlier.
 
Thank you for your patience while I looked in to this more. I understand that the search function on your site was not working as expected. Specifically, the search block was not returning indexed content as it should. 
 
When it comes to resolving platform issues, we can't fix every problem, so we have to choose the most impactful improvements. We prioritize platform developments and critical issues that affect a large number of customers or greatly reduce the usability of the platform.

While we understand it may be inconvenient, we don’t currently have plans to fix or improve this behavior.
 
I hope the information above is helpful. If you have any additional questions please don’t hesitate to reach out. We are here 24/7 and are always happy to help!
 
Thanks,
Ryan J.

Is the Squarespace team ever going to respond to this issue?
 

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2024:
Search reliability has been improved! Searches should now return accurate results. If you aren't seeing these improvements, please post examples, including screenshots.
 
ORIGINAL POST (SEPT 2021):
Sadly, this is a known issue (see screenshot below) - and has been since October 2019. It is a technically complex issue that will require some time to resolve and so, although I don't work for Squarespace, I don't expect to see it resolved any time soon.
I will post back whenever there is news, but in the meantime I recommend that you:
log a support ticket with Customer Care. Squarespace doesn’t use this forum to track bugs, limitations, or feature requests. If you'd like to raise the visibility of this issue, you are encouraged to contact Squarespace directly.  consider using an external search service or use sorting and filtering solutions to improve discoverability of products.  Some search solutions you can integrate into Squarespace include:
Universal Filter. Squarespace specific filtering with search ($70 one-off payment). SearchIQ. Fast and intelligent search, from $19pm (without branding). Swiftype by Elasticsearch. Enterprise-class solution from $79pm. Programmable search engine. A Google service that you can get for free or a low price.

I have just run into this issue as well!  I am totally panicking, as my site relies on good internal search functionality!
After finding this page on forum here, I reached back out to SS (was the 4th agent I talked to today) and I finally got a real response (the others were blanket replies saying that the issue is being forwarded to engineering and they will work on it).
The last agent agreed that it's been an issue with 7.1 since the beginning, that the search doesn't work for text blocks, image titles or captions or most content on layout pages!
I am mortified after spending hundreds of hours on my site.
How can this issue have not been fixed by now ~ I mean seriously!?
At least, if they CAN'T fix it, there should be an upfront disclosure, on their site, that alerts people to this problem, when people are choosing between 7.0 vs. 7.1 and/or between SS and another platform (that can handle the basic functionality of internal search).
FYI Apparently it's not an issue for 7.0, but those templates can not do what 7.1 can, design-wise.
I feel like I have potentially lost 100's of hours of work, time and money and really don't understand why SS can't fix this bug!  How can we get through to them, to have this resolved?
 

Same! My patience with SquareSpace is running thin - what am I paying for if their dumb templates are broken! I have thousands of items for sale on an ecommerce site and search needs to work! SQUARESPACE - when will this be fixed?

Yes, this is very problematic. Site search is one of those common features in a website that when they don't work, reflect poorly on the developer, regardless of fault. Had I been aware something as simple as the search tool would not work I wouldn't have created the website in 7.1. I will not develop any others in 7.1 until this issue is fixed.