How to Password Protect a Squarespace Website
There may be times when you want to password-protect your Squarespace website, such as when you want to restrict access while you run updates, or if you want to put your site into holiday mode.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of adding password protection to your Squarespace* website, both site-wide and individual pages.
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Step 1: Open Site Availability
In your Squarespace dashboard, go to Settings > Site Availability.
Step 2: Set Your Password
Switch from Public to Password Protected and input your password. Choose a password that you can remember (or write it down) but make sure it isn’t easy for visitors to guess it, as anyone with the password can access your site. Don’t use your Squarespace account password as your site password.
Lastly, click Save.
Now, anyone visiting your website will see a password screen.
The Squarespace lock screen.
How to Password Protect Individual Squarespace Pages
Squarespace also lets you protect individual pages.
You can do this by navigating to your Pages panel and hovering on the page you’d like to password protect. Click the cog icon to open Page Settings > General > add your password in the Password field, and save your changes.
You can create different passwords for different pages.
How to Customize the Lock Screen
Once you’ve set a password, site visitors will be greeted by a lock screen. By default, it’s very minimal, with a grey palette, lock icon, and password field. However, you can customize it via Pages > System Pages > Lock Screen. From there, you can:
a. Add your site title or logo
b. Adjust fonts and colors
c. Add a background image
d. Add/change copy
e. Style the password field
This means you can make your lock screen a branded experience. However, it’s worth noting that lock screens have their own styling controls and do not use the drag-and-drop builder. They are not fully customizable and you cannot add sections or blocks.
An Alternative to Password Protection: Squarespace Member Areas
If you’re looking for gated content instead of password protection, you can consider Squarespace Member Areas. This is an add-on feature with more advanced functionality, allowing you to:
Create member accounts and give each member their own login.
Offer free, paid, and tiered memberships.
Host courses and gated content.
It’s ideal for offering online courses, digital products, and communities that need a login or gated system.
FAQs
Q. Can Google index a password protected Squarespace site?
A. When your entire site is password protected, search engines cannot crawl or index your pages. If the page was indexed before you added the password, it will continue appearing in search results until search engines recrawl it.
Q. Will password protecting a page affect my SEO?
A. If your entire website is password protected, search engines can’t crawl or index your site. If individual pages are password protected, public pages will be visible to search engines, but protected pages will be hidden. This means the unprotected pages can still rank on Google.
Q. Can I remove password protection later?
A. You can switch your site back to Public at any time. Go to Settings > Click Site Availability > Select Public > Click Save.
Q. How secure is password protection?
A Password protection is useful for limiting access, but it isn’t highly secure or designed for highly confidential content.
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