Moving from WordPress to Squarespace is a rebuild with an import, not a migration in the WordPress sense: you build the new site on a Squarespace trial, import the WordPress export file to bring across posts, pages, categories, tags and attached images, recreate the design by hand (nothing of the theme transfers), redirect every old URL to its new one, then move the domain and cancel WordPress. Done in that order it keeps the rankings and takes a week or two for a typical business site. Done out of order, with the domain moved before the redirects exist, it can cost a year of SEO. Below is the sequence, what imports and what does not, the redirect step most guides underplay, and the honest cases where moving is the wrong call.
Should you move from WordPress to Squarespace?
| Move if | Stay if |
|---|---|
| The site is a brochure or a modest blog and nobody maintains WordPress | The site depends on plugins with no Squarespace equivalent (membership, LMS, complex booking, custom shop logic) |
| Updates, plugin conflicts or hacks have cost you time or money | The blog is large (hundreds of posts) and traffic-critical; the redirect and formatting work is heavy |
| You want to edit pages yourself without a developer | You need custom schema, speed engineering or technical SEO control |
| The design is being redone anyway | You have a developer and the site works |
| Hosting and maintenance costs exceed a Squarespace plan | You sell with WooCommerce at any real volume |
Squarespace versus WordPress for SEO covers the ranking side of the decision and the broader platform comparison the rest. The short version: a small site with a maintenance problem should move; a complex site with a working developer should not.
What imports from WordPress, and what does not?
| Imports | Does not import |
|---|---|
| Blog pages, posts and authors | Theme, layout, design, fonts, CSS |
| Site pages (as text and images) | Anything created by plugins: forms, sliders, galleries, shortcode output |
| Categories and tags (long ones truncated) | Gallery images |
| Comments | Image captions |
| Images attached to posts or pages | Media Library images not attached to a post or page |
| Attachments | Menus, widgets, settings, users’ roles |
Squarespace’s WordPress migration guide lists both columns, and the practical meaning is that posts arrive as clean text with their images, while every page needs to be laid out again in Squarespace sections. Blog authors become “basic authors” you can reassign to contributor accounts afterwards.
Moving from WordPress to Squarespace, step by step
- Export the old URLs. Screaming Frog crawl or the WordPress sitemap, plus the Pages report in Search Console for the last twelve months. This list drives step 7.
- Start a Squarespace trial and choose a template; the trial can be extended if the build runs long.
- Export from WordPress: Tools, Export, All content, download the .xml. Deactivate plugins first, as Squarespace’s import guide advises, and make sure every image you want is attached to a post or page.
- Import into Squarespace: Settings, Import & Export, Import, WordPress, upload the file. Posts land in a new blog page; pages land as layout pages to be restyled.
- Rebuild the pages in sections: home, services, about, contact, with the copy pasted from the old site and images re-uploaded at sensible sizes. The design mistakes to avoid apply here because a migration is the moment they get fixed or repeated.
- Set SEO titles and descriptions on every page and post; copy the old ones where they were good. Squarespace has fields for both under each page’s SEO tab.
- Match or redirect every URL. Keep slugs identical where possible (
/aboutstays/about; posts keep their slugs under the blog page). For everything that changed, add 301s under Settings, Developer Tools, URL Mappings:/old-page -> /new-page 301, and use the[name]wildcard for a whole blog path:/blog/[name] -> /journal/[name] 301. WordPress date-based post URLs (/2024/05/post-title/) are the awkward case: the wildcard matches a single path segment, so either keep the posts’ final slugs and map them individually, or set the blog page slug so the new URLs match. - Rebuild forms, galleries and embeds with Squarespace blocks; reconnect newsletter and analytics.
- Test on the trial URL: every page, every form, mobile, and a sample of old URLs pasted onto the new domain to confirm redirects.
- Upgrade, move the domain, publish. Connect or transfer the domain, set Site Availability to Public, and keep the WordPress site live until DNS has switched, as Squarespace recommends. Changing a Squarespace domain covers the DNS side.
- Search Console: add the new property if the domain changed, submit the sitemap, and watch the Pages report for 404s for a month.
- Cancel WordPress hosting after two to four weeks, once traffic and rankings have settled and you have a full backup of the old site.
What breaks in a WordPress to Squarespace move?
| Problem | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Rankings drop after launch | Redirects missing or wrong | Compare the old URL list to the new site; add mappings; check Search Console 404s |
| Post formatting is off | WordPress shortcodes and plugin markup imported as text | Edit posts; remove leftover shortcodes; reinsert galleries as Squarespace blocks |
| Images missing | Media Library images not attached to a post or page | Re-upload from a Media Library download |
| Blog URLs changed | Squarespace puts posts under the blog page slug | Name the blog page to match the old path, or wildcard-redirect |
| Forms stop working | Plugin forms did not import | Form block with storage set |
| Speed feels different | Different platform, different rendering | Compress images; keep fonts to two families |
| Site not on Google after weeks | Domain changed without redirects, or new property not verified | Redirect old domain; verify and submit sitemap |
How long does it take, and what does it cost?
A five-to-fifteen page site with under fifty posts: one to two weeks for a designer, three to four for an owner doing it around a business. A large blog: add a week per hundred posts for formatting checks. Costs are a Squarespace plan from launch, a designer’s fee for the rebuild if you use one, and, the part people forget, the old hosting for the overlap month. If the old site’s design is worth keeping, a designer can match it closely; if it is not, the migration is the cheapest time to change it, which is why most of the moves I do are also redesigns on Squarespace, with the WordPress site kept live and untouched until the new one is proven.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Export from WordPress, import the .xml into Squarespace to bring posts, pages, categories, tags and attached images, rebuild the design in Squarespace sections, redirect old URLs with URL Mappings, then move the domain and publish.
Not if every old URL is kept or 301-redirected, titles and descriptions are carried over, and the sitemap is submitted after launch. Rankings drop when the domain moves before the redirects exist.
The theme and design, CSS, plugin content such as forms and galleries, image captions, gallery images, and Media Library images not attached to a post or page. Pages arrive as text and images to be laid out again.
Settings, Developer Tools, URL Mappings. One line per changed URL (/old -> /new 301), and the [name] wildcard for whole paths, for example /blog/[name] -> /journal/[name] 301 or /2024/[name] -> /blog/[name] 301.
One to two weeks for a typical business site with a designer, three to four for an owner working part-time, plus a week per hundred blog posts for formatting checks. Keep WordPress live for the overlap.
If the site is a brochure or modest blog and WordPress maintenance is the problem, usually yes. If it relies on plugins with no Squarespace equivalent, runs a busy WooCommerce shop, or needs technical SEO control, stay.
