Need to temporarily take your Squarespace website offline without losing your content? This guide walks you through multiple methods to unpublish, pause, or hide your Squarespace website while keeping your data intact.
Why Unpublish Instead of Deleting?
Unpublishing allows you to hide your Squarespace website from the public without deleting any of its content. This is ideal if you're redesigning, rebranding, or taking a temporary break.
- Retain your content. No need to re-upload or recreate anything later.
- Preserve SEO work. Avoid the damage of full deletion or 404 errors.
- Quickly relaunch later. Your website structure remains intact.
Method 1: Add a Password to Restrict Access
To make your Squarespace website private, you can add a password so only select people can view it.
- Go to Settings in your Squarespace dashboard.
- Select Site Availability.
- Choose Password Protected.
- Enter a strong password and save.
This hides your Squarespace website from public view while keeping it technically published.
Method 2: Temporarily Disable Your Squarespace Website
To deactivate your Squarespace website entirely, you can set it to offline mode or stop it from being indexed.
Pause your Squarespace website using Site Availability
- Open your website’s dashboard.
- Click Settings > Site Availability.
- Select Private to block access entirely.
Turn off Squarespace website visibility using SEO settings
- Go to Marketing > SEO.
- Disable search engine indexing by unchecking “Hide my site from search engines.”
Method 3: Cancel Your Subscription to Fully Deactivate
If you’re no longer using the website at all, you can take the Squarespace website offline completely by canceling your plan.
- Navigate to Settings > Billing & Account.
- Click Billing and choose Cancel Website Subscription.
- Follow the steps to confirm cancellation.
This deactivates your website but lets you retain content for some time before permanent deletion.
How to Keep Content Without Publishing
If you're looking to keep your Squarespace content without publishing it, here are some options:
- Save pages as drafts. Set page visibility to not linked or draft.
- Disable navigation links. Hide key pages from menus.
- Export content. Use the export tool under Settings > Advanced.
Troubleshooting: If Your Website Still Appears Online
If you've tried the steps above and your Squarespace website is still visible, double-check these settings:
- Confirm Site Availability is set to Private.
- Verify no active pages are publicly linked.
- Ensure you cleared your browser cache and tested in incognito mode.
Manage and Control Access to Your Squarespace Website
You can fine-tune visibility using Squarespace website settings for unpublishing or by adjusting access based on your needs.
For full control: Combine private settings, password protection, and navigation restrictions to take full control of your Squarespace website visibility.
Useful Links
Publishing or Hiding Your Site – Learn how to control your site's visibility by making it public, password-protected, or private.
Hiding Your Built-In Domain from Search Engine Results – Discover how to prevent your Squarespace site from appearing in search engine results.
Canceling Your Site Subscription – Step-by-step instructions to cancel your Squarespace subscription and understand the implications.
Exporting Your Site – Learn how to export your site's content for backup or migration purposes.
90+ Top plugins to Achieve Your Goals with Squarespace!
Elfsight created dozens of useful plugins to make your website more attractive and boost its performance in so many ways. Try these no-code solutions for free on Squarespace!
Conclusion
It is simple and flexible to unpublish a website on Squarespace. Whether you want to pause your website temporarily, hide it from the public, or take it completely offline, Squarespace provides multiple tools to manage your visibility. Remember, you don’t have to delete your content—just adjust your visibility settings to meet your goals.