How to Block Crawlers on Squarespace
To block crawlers on Squarespace, go to Settings in the sidebar, scroll to the bottom of the Website section, and click Crawlers. You will find two separate switches: one for search engine crawlers and one for AI crawlers.
Where the setting is
From your site, open Settings in the left sidebar.
Scroll down within the Website section. Crawlers is the last option, right at the bottom, which is why it takes some hunting.
Inside you'll find two separate controls. One blocks search engine crawlers, the other blocks AI crawlers. They're independent, and the difference matters a great deal.
What blocking search crawlers actually does
Be careful with this one. Blocking search engine crawlers tells Google, Bing and everyone else not to index your site.
That means no search traffic. None. Your site becomes invisible to anyone who isn't typing your URL directly or clicking a link you've shared.
There are legitimate reasons to do it: a site under construction, an internal resource, a client portal, or a page you only want reached through a direct link.
What it is not is a privacy setting. The site is still public, still loads for anyone with the address, and blocked crawlers are a request that well-behaved bots honour rather than a lock. For genuine privacy you want a password.
And if you're building a new site, this is one of the things that gets left switched on by accident at launch. If a site has been live for weeks with no search traffic at all, check here first.
The AI crawler decision
The second switch is newer and the trade-off is genuinely debatable.
Blocking AI crawlers stops tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity from reading your site. The argument for it is that you don't want your content used to train models you get nothing from.
The argument against is that AI search is increasingly how people find things. When someone asks an assistant for a web designer in Utah, being readable is what gets you mentioned. Block those crawlers and you're invisible in a channel that keeps growing.
For a business that wants to be found, I'd leave AI crawlers on. This site allows all of them deliberately, and says so in its robots file. For a portfolio of client work you'd rather not have scraped, blocking is a reasonable call.
Worth knowing the two aren't the same bots. Blocking AI crawlers doesn't affect your Google rankings, and blocking search crawlers doesn't necessarily stop AI tools that use their own indexes.
Blocking one page instead of the whole site
Usually people reaching for this setting only want one page out of search, not everything.
For that, don't touch the sitewide switch. Open the page's settings, go to the SEO tab, and turn on Hide Page from Search Results. That keeps the rest of your site indexed while excluding just that page, which I've covered in hiding a page on Squarespace.
That's the right tool for thank-you pages, campaign landing pages and anything else you want live but not listed.
Checking what you currently have set
yourdomain.com/robots.txt in a browser and you'll see the instructions your site is giving crawlers.
Disallow: / under a user-agent means that crawler is blocked from everything. If you see that and didn't intend it, that's your missing search traffic explained.
If you've just changed the setting, it can take Google a while to recrawl and act on it. Requesting indexing in Search Console speeds it up.
Frequently asked questions
Should I block AI crawlers on my Squarespace site?
It depends what the site is for. If you want to be found, leaving them on means AI tools can cite you, and that channel keeps growing. If you're protecting client work or original writing from being scraped, blocking is reasonable.
Does blocking crawlers make my site private?
No. The site stays public and loads for anyone with the URL. Blocking is a request that well-behaved bots follow, not a lock. Use a password for real privacy.
Why is my site not showing up on Google?
Check this setting first, since a search crawler block left on after launch is one of the most common causes. Check yourdomain.com/robots.txt to confirm.
Can I block crawlers from just one page?
Yes, and it's usually what you want. Use Hide Page from Search Results in that page's SEO settings rather than the sitewide crawler switch.
Site been live a while with no search traffic? That is worth a proper look. See my SEO service or book a free call.
I'm Dylan, the designer behind Highr Labs and a Squarespace Circle Platinum Partner. I build custom Squarespace sites for businesses in Utah and across the US. More about me, or book a free call if you want to talk through a project.
