How to backup a Squarespace website
In summary, Squarespace takes responsibility for keeping your website up and running. However, if you would like to take more of an active role to keep your Squarespace website safe, this guide explains what you can do.
My Squarespace site is already protected, right?
The good news is that Squarespace have tried to take care of nearly everything for you. Theyβve ensured that every Squarespace website operates in somewhat of a "safety bubble", with users and their sites protected by many different measures. For example (technical jargon follows):
Squarespace uses leading data center and cloud service providers to store website data.
Squarespace infrastructure is designed with redundancy and failover mechanisms. This means that if one server or component fails, traffic is automatically redirected to alternative servers, minimising downtime.
Squarespace leverages geographically separate data centers and cloud service provider availability zones. This isolation helps prevent correlated failures. If there is an issue, such as a power outage, hardware failure, or network disruption in one availability zone, services can continue in another zone, increasing overall system reliability.
They also have dedicated teams located in multiple geographies, allowing them to manage service availability and continuity across time zones.
Cloud providers and data centres use an array of security equipment, techniques, and procedures to protect data integrity and availability, including redundant systems and backup power.
Squarespaceβs Security Operations Center (SOC) operates 24/7, monitoring for potential threats and vulnerabilities to ensure your website is protected.
Squarespace is designed to scale with the needs of users and can handle varying levels of demand, ensuring reliability even during traffic spikes. The same platform that is used to serve www.squarespace.com and similar high-traffic sites is being used to power low-traffic traffic sites with less than 20 pages.
There are also features built into the platform at the user level to manage βaccidentalβ deletions. For example:
You can restore pages and blog posts that you've deleted from your site in the last 30 days. This includes pages within a member site.
You can restore blog posts you deleted in the last 30 days
You can undo text deletions if you havenβt closed the text editor since making the changes.
You cannot add code to the checkout page, ensuring the payment process is safe.
That all said, there are additional steps you can take to protect the data on your website.
1. Duplicate your website
You can make a copy of your Squarespace website by duplicating it. This can be really useful as a visual reference if you are planning to make major changes to your website, or planning to upgrade to a newer version of Squarespace. It is particularly useful if you are a Squarespace Circle member as you will be able to keep this duplicate website for up to six months.
To duplicate a website, log on to your Account Dashboard and find the site that you want to duplicate. Click the three dots next to it, and then choose DUPLICATE WEBSITE (see below). Thatβs it!
If your site has fewer than 100 pages, youβll have a copy of your website in a few minutes. It will include:
Site title and logo
Text content
Pages, sections, layouts, and blocks
Code injection in advanced settings
Language & region settings
Style settings
That said, it wonβt be an exact duplicate and so isnβt a βbackupβ. Also, if you are not a Circle member it will expire in 14 days and will be deleted in a further 30 days, so it is only useful for short periods.
It is also important to note that it wonβt include:
βSellingβ data like customers, orders and subscriptions.
Analytics and billing data
Contributor permissions
Domains
Discounts
Email Campaigns
Deleted content
Image and videos not being used on pages of the site
Files that were uploaded through the link editor (for example, PDFs)
Stock images
Saved sections
Integrations and extensions
2. Ask Wayback Machine to archive your website
The Wayback Machine is a third-party service operated by the Internet Archive. It automatically crawls and archives websites so they are available at a later date. This provides a really useful reference, especially if you are planning to make major changes to your website. If you would like to make sure the Wayback Machine captures your site at a specific moment, you can use the "Save Page Now" feature. Go to https://web.archive.org/save/ and enter your website's URL. This will prompt the Wayback Machine to capture and archive your site at that moment. This is a free non-profit service but they appreciate donations.
3. Keep a copy of your images
As there isnβt a way to bulk export your images from Squarespace so itβs a good idea to keep a copy of your images somewhere safe. This may be in cloud storage like Google Drive, iCloud, your own computer or a thumb drive.
4. Export text and blog content to a .xml file
Thereβs a built-in feature that will export certain content from your Squarespace site into a .xml file. This cannot be imported back into Squarespace but it will give you a file that contains lots of text content from your site, including layout pages and the content of all blog posts (including up to 1000 comments per post). It may also include Image Blocks and Gallery Pages. It wonβt include details from other collections like Products, Events or Portfolios, nor audio or video.
To export this file, first go to Settings > Import & Export Content and then click EXPORT. Click the WordPress icon and follow the steps. When the export has finished processing, click DOWNLOAD to save the .xml file on your computer.
5. Export products to a csv file
If you are selling any products on your Squarespace website, you can export the majority of their details to a CSV file. That is, a file you can open and read in a spreadsheet application. To export product information, open the Selling panel, click Products and then click Export All.
You can export up to 10,000 physical and service products, including up to three variant options per product (for example, colour and size). You canβt export digital download products, product reviews or any information stored in the Additional Information section. Also, although the CSV will include a link to the main product image, the images themselves will not be included and neither the details of featured or variant images.
6. Keep a backup of your code
If you have added any custom code to your website, itβs a good idea to keep a backup of this in case it is accidentally deleted or modified. This may include styles youβve added to the Custom CSS panel or scripts youβve added to the Code Injection panels. Copy and paste the text from these panels into a plain text editor like Textedit or Notepad. Itβs not a good idea to use a word processing application like Microsoft Word or Pages.
What else can I do to protect my Squarespace website?
To protect your Squarespace website from potential hacking attempts, here are two important steps you can take.
1. Enable two-factor authentication (2FA)
Squarespace comes with a great security feature called βtwo-factor authenticationβ or β2FAβ but it isnβt enabled by default. Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an extra layer of security added to the login process to ensure that every contributor who is trying to log on to your website is who they say they are.
In practical terms, when a contributor enables 2FA for their account, after entering their password, theyβll need to provide another form of verification. This can be a code sent to their phone by text message or a code generated by an βauthenticatorβ app installed on their smartphone. The idea is that even if someone manages to guess the password, they would still need the second factor to gain access, significantly enhancing your siteβs security. Of course, if you have more than one contributor, it is important that everyone enables this feature on their account (you cannot enable it for them).
2. Only install code from reputable sources
Squarespace aims to provide a stable and reliable platform for users. The use of custom code is restricted in certain areas of the platform, for example, to protect the payment process on the checkout page, but custom code can be added on other pages using Code Injection. This allows designers and developers to extend the functionality of the Squarespace platform but code offers a way for less trustworthy individuals to attack a website. For this reason, it is extremely important to only install code from trusted sources.
Security risks
Code from unknown authors may contain vulnerabilities or malicious elements that could compromise the security of your website. It might include βbackdoorsβ, malware, or other exploits that could be used by attackers to gain unauthorised access or control over your website.
Reliability and compatibility risks
Code provided on forums can also vary widely in quality. Authors may not adhere to best practices or adhere to coding standards. Their code may prevent the Squarespace editor from functioning or may negatively impact your website's performance, leading to slow loading times and a poor user experience.
Supportability
The Squarespace platform is updated regularly to address security issues, improve performance, and maintain compatibility with evolving technologies. Without proper support, your custom code will break and may become vulnerable to new threats over time. If you do not have a support relationship with the code author, they cannot provide ongoing support or updates for their code.
