How to change built in domain: Squarespace
As much as I’m a fan of the creative built in domain names that Squarespace gives you - swordfish-violin-3654219 being one of my faves, they’re difficult to remember and not super profesh when sharing your site with others.
Of course eventually you will want to purchase or connect your own domain name(s) to your Squarespace website - more (much more!) about that here, but in the meantime to make it easy for you to change built in domain Squarespace have a simple field you can edit to clean things up a bit. Oh and it’s worth remembering, that this Squarespace domain stays with your site for always & forever - so if you ever lose/ forget your domain, you can go to the .squarespace.com version of your domain & you’ll find your site!
Changing your built-in domain name on Squarespace can also have benefits from an SEO perspective, particularly in relation to indexing (more on that later).
It amazes me how many people don’t know that you can change built in domain Squarespace, and it’s super simple too!
So without further ado - here’s how to change the built in domain on your Squarespace site in less than 5 minutes!
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How to find your Built-in Squarespace domain?
You can find your Squarespace domain by navigating from the main menu to Settings, and then domains.
Alternatively you can hit the forward slash “/” and type domains & it’ll pop up (pro Squarespace tip for you!!)
How do you know what your built in Squarespace domain is?
In the domains menu section that we found above, you will find a list of all domains associated with your Squarespace website.
At the bottom of this list you will find your built in domain name - the one given to your site when you first started your trial. This never expires, even if your other domains do.
If you’ve never changed your Squarespace domain name it’ll be a couple of random words connected together - whilst they give lolz, they’re not easy to remember, or very professional looking, and so that’s why we’re going to want to change this built-in Squarespace domain name.
How do you change built in domain: Squarespace?
Changing your domain name on Squarespace is really easy, simply click on “built-in domain”, and under the box that says “site id” and “customize your built-in domain” you can delete the original domain name given to you and replace it with a name of your choice.
Then click the rename button.
You will be asked to confirm your choice and after clicking confirm your new domain name will be activated! It will now look like: www.yourchosendomain.squarespace.com
You’ll also receive an email confirming the changes.
You might be wondering, what to change your Squarespace built-in domain name to?
Great question!
I’d go for a variant of your primary domain name, so if my domain is risingtidecreatives.com, I might go for edit-risingtidecreatives as my Squarespace built-in domain (Squarespace will automatically add the “.squarespace.com” to the end of all built-in domains. This can help prevent any confusion with your primary domain if you’re sharing urls on social/ elsewhere.
You can go for exactly the same domain too if you prefer and it will show as risingtidecreatives.squarespace.com
A quick note on Indexing
Google “indexes” all web pages so that it can match them to people’s searches. This is how your web page ends up “ranked” by google.
One issue that can pop up from time to time is that google doesn’t just index the pages using your domain yourwebsite.com, it also indexes pages using the built-in domain.
This is called an “accidental variant” and can cause confusion for users & result in you essentially having two pages '“competing” in the search ranking.
This often happens if you’ve submitted your built-in domain to google for your site map, or had your website published with the built-in domain for some time & google has therefore indexed this “version” of your site & is serving it to people in search.
You can have a peek to see if your built-in domain is being used for pages indexed via google by searching site:yoursquarespacedomain.squarespace.com in google & seeing if pages come up. If they do, just. be mindful that if you change your built in domain these will become broken links & redirect to your 404 page until eventually google realises & phases them out.
This is pretty unlikely to happen (& you don’t really want google indexing these pages anyway!) but you can check to be sure before you change your inbuilt domain. Oh & make sure to submit your sitemap to google search console for your primary (non Squarespace) domain after any significant changes to your site.
Connecting a domain to your Squarespace website
If you’d like to lose the “.squarespace” from your domain name you will need to purchase, or connect a domain, or make use of Squarespace’s free domain for 1 year if you’re about to publish your site - you can find out everything you need to know to buy, connect, or move your domain name to your Squarespace site here.
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Every Squarespace website has a built in domain which lives with the site regardless of any domain you may connect to the site. It ends in .squarespace, and is automatically generated. You may change it within your Squarespace settings.
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Yes! It’s really easy to change your built-in domain on Squarespace. Simply hit forward slash & start to type domain to find it, then head to “built in domain” edit it and click save. You’ll receive an email confirmation.
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The main reason is that it looks more professional. It also makes it easier to keep track of your sites, as Squarespace references this domain in emails to you (for example about renewing your website etc)
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Nope! You can change the built-in domain for free, although I highly recommend connecting a paid-for domain that doesn’t include the .squarespace so that your site looks more professional. This costs around €16/ year via Squarespace, and can be even cheaper via sites like namecheap or godaddy.
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It shouldn’t as generally speaking google should have indexed your website using your premium (paid for) domain (the one without the .squarespace at the end). If your site was indexed using your built-in domain, when you change it those links will be broken & will go to your 404 page. However, if you submit a sitemap for your paid for domain eventually google will figure out that it should be indexing these pages instead & will phase out your built-in domain pages in search.
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