How to change the SEO title and description on Squarespace

Where each field lives

Sources: Squarespace: title formats and Squarespace: SEO descriptions, checked October 2026.

If you leave a description blank, search engines use the excerpt for blog posts and events and the product description for products, according to Squarespace. For pages, Google picks text from the page.

Title formats and the %s, %p and %i variables

A title format decides how every title is built. It mixes your own text with three variables:

A clean setup for most sites:

• Home: your own text, for example Northwind Outdoors | Camping Gear in Denver.
• Pages: %p | %s
• Items: %i | %s

Two rules. Keep %p in the Pages format and %i in the Items format, or every page or product shows the same title. And do not put a keyword in the format itself: "%p | Best Dentist Austin | %s" repeats the same words on every page, which makes titles longer and looks spammy.

Why Google sometimes shows a different title

Google builds the title link in search results mainly from your <title>, but it also looks at the main heading, other headings and links pointing at the page. It may change a title that is too long, stuffed with keywords, stale, or that does not match the page (Google: title links).

The same goes for descriptions. Google shows your description only when it describes the page better than text pulled from the page itself (Google: snippets).

So the goal is not a perfect length. It is a title and description so accurate that Google keeps them.

Formulas that work, with examples

All examples are fictional businesses.

What these share: the words people search come first, one concrete fact (a price, a time, a number), and a reason to click. For 100 more patterns by page type, see our title and meta description swipe file.

Squarespace accepts descriptions up to 400 characters and suggests 50 to 300. Aim for about 150 so the key point shows on phones.

Common mistakes

1. The same title on every page. Usually caused by a Pages format without %p.
2. Titles that are just the page name. "Services | Site Name" says nothing. Add what and where.
3. Blank descriptions on money pages. Google then picks a random sentence, often a menu or cookie notice.
4. Changing the URL slug while editing the SEO tab. Squarespace does not redirect a changed slug. Add a 301 in URL mappings the same day (Squarespace 301 redirects).
5. Rewriting everything at once. Change your 10 most important pages first, so you can see what worked.

Track the result in Search Console

1. Note the date you changed each title.
2. After 28 days, open Search Console > Performance > Search results.
3. Use Compare: the 28 days after the change versus the 28 days before. Filter by the page.
4. Look at clicks and click-through rate, not just position. A better title can raise clicks at the same position.

Do not judge a change after a few days. Google needs to recrawl the page first.