Until you connect or upgrade to a paid plan, your site will remain private by default. When ready for publishing, simply switch Site Availability option from Private to Public in the Site Settings and make it public!
If you need to keep certain parts of your site private, password protecting pages or sites can help create the necessary security. This could be particularly useful for client galleries for event photographers.
Site Visibility
Squarespace makes your website private by default; only when you make it public can visitors view it. Without direct link access or searching engines like Google or other similar services can anyone see your website.
To create a private page, edit an individual page or post and choose “Private” from the Visibility menu. When this happens, you’ll be asked to provide a password and customize how the popup displays when someone visits your private URL. Furthermore, due to Squarespace preventing search engines from indexing websites directly, any private pages won’t appear in Google search results.
Establishing a private page is an excellent way to protect your content and prevent people from viewing what shouldn’t be visible to them. For instance, an event photographer could give each client access to their photos through their private gallery page with its own password for viewing their images.
So that your clients will only see photos they’ve purchased, no one else will have access to their work without permission from you or them. When creating websites to promote businesses, private blogs for you and employees to write in can prevent competitors or the general public from viewing your content.
If you’re using Squarespace to sell products, connecting a payment processor is required before going live. Otherwise, visitors who try to checkout will get an error message saying that “Checkout is Closed – this site does not support Processing Payments”.
If you’re designing a website to be used for business, it is critical that the privacy settings are optimal in order to avoid losing customers and legal action due to unprotected content. As your business expands or changes, be sure to review these settings frequently, including as your customer base grows or evolves. You may wish to invest in third-party protection such as Sentry Login so as to prevent unwanted visitors from viewing it.
Private Pages
There may be numerous reasons for making certain pages on your website private, from event photographers providing clients a link to preview their photographs to business needs requiring confidential pages – Squarespace makes creating private pages easy!
To create a private page on your site, navigate to the Pages tab and locate the page that needs to be made private by clicking its three dot icon on the right-hand side of its page. A pop-up window will then appear where you can select “Share with specific list of people.”
Squarespace automatically generates a unique URL when creating a private page, so you can customize its look when someone visits and even add a password so only visitors entering their correct password will be able to view content on it. Due to Squarespace’s web indexing restrictions, your private pages won’t show up in search engine search results like Google.
You can only create one private page at once; however, if you need multiple ones quickly, use Squarespace’s built-in tool to duplicate and change its availability from public to private. If you experience difficulty altering this setting for individual pages, try clearing your cookies in your browser and resetting your password as this could also help; otherwise contact Squarespace support directly for help.
Squarespace was built to be user-friendly for even novice webmasters. The tools available let you build beautiful personal or business websites quickly with features such as blogs, eCommerce functionality, image galleries and blogs. After some experimentation you will quickly master this platform to craft the website of your dreams!
When you are ready to launch your site, simply log into Squarespace and visit the Settings tab. There, click “Publish Site,” if applicable (and haven’t upgraded yet if needed) before hitting “Publish.” You may also choose at any point later to make it public by returning to Settings and choosing Public as your radio button option.
Password-protected Pages
As you build your website, it may be beneficial to set passwords to keep certain pages private while adding content. This will prevent anyone other than those with the password from visiting it as well as stop its presence from appearing in search results.
To create a private page, head to the Page Settings panel and choose “Password Protect this Page.” Enter a password of your choosing before clicking Save to ensure only you can view its contents; anyone trying to view will be asked for password information before they can view.
Password protecting individual blocks within your site can also be done easily by going to the Block Settings panel and selecting “Password Protect Block.” Though creating these pages requires different steps, password protecting individual sections of your site is an effective way to restrict access.
Password protection isn’t the only way to restrict access to your website, but it is an easy and effective solution. There is also the option of using third-party services that enable members-only areas, a more sophisticated method for managing members-only sections on websites.
Event photographers frequently utilize password-protected pages as part of their gallery service, offering clients unique URLs and passwords after events to access their photos. This practice prevents unintended viewing and keeps content exclusive for those meant to see it.
Create a password-protected page of a draft version of your website to test out how it looks and solicit feedback from friends and family before you launch the final site. Keep in mind, however, that Squarespace sites connected with domains cannot become public without valid billing plans attached; to keep things private when testing out a draft site simply switch its mode from Public to Password Protected for private access.
Unpublishing a Site
Squarespace makes it simple and straightforward to temporarily or permanently close down a website with ease. Simply log into your account, select the site to be unpublished from the settings panel, click Unpublish, and the site will no longer be visible online – though any files associated with the website such as images or templates will remain on your account until deleted by you.
To republish your site, head back into the settings panel and choose which site you wish to bring back online. If your old password has expired, a new one will need to be created, while visibility options may need adjusting accordingly if your site had previously been made private – however any pages or posts shared prior to your decision remain visible to anyone with links.
When you’re ready to republish your site, just navigate back into the settings panel and toggle the Site Availability switch back onto Public. Search engines will still index your website; however, with an upgraded subscription plan you can request Google or Bing reindex your website in order to increase its visibility in search results.
There may be various reasons for you to make your Squarespace site private, from redesigning it and keeping it hidden during development to protecting sensitive information. No matter what the reason is for wanting your site private, Squarespace makes it simple by giving you options between making all or just specific pages and posts private. Only limit is that, if using password-protected pages, those won’t be accessible without appropriate credentials. if you need to share password-protected pages with people outside your Squarespace account, SentryLogin offers an effective third-party solution. With just a few steps you can easily create and distribute custom login links for any website hosted with Squarespace, Wix, Weebly or WordPress; as well as most other hosting services.
