A practical guide to Not Linked Pages in Squarespace
Creating pages in Squarespace that are not displayed to visitors on the navigation menu can be helpful when creating a website. The Not Linked section of pages is below the linked pages. Not Linked pages are still public unless they are disabled, or password protected. They do not display in the navigation menu, but search engines can still discover them.
My business website, May Web Design, LLC, is constantly changing. I always have pages listed in the Not Linked section as I am working on them to come up with the perfect page. Once perfected I publish to my website. I usually pull the page I’m replacing into the Not Linked section so I can work with that more or maybe change back at a different time. Keeping websites updated and fresh is especially important.
In the Not Linked section you can drag pages from the linked section, or you can create new pages right there in the Not Linked area. It’s especially important to have an Error 404 page for this reason. When you move linked pages into the Not Linked area you have broken a URL. Read my most recent blog, Squarespace Basics: 404 Page, so that you can learn how to create a page to redirect visitors to a working page when there is a broken URL. You want to make sure visitors are redirected to pages that work and can properly visit your website.
Instead of adding more pages or drop-down menus you can add Not Linked pages that can be linked by clicking on linked words, pictures, buttons. This will open the page that is not linked and display information that you want your visitor to view.
If you would like to hide Not Linked pages from search engines you could do one of the following:
Password Protect
Home Menu > Pages
To the right of the Page, you want to add a password click the gear icon.
Scroll down to password and enter a password for the page.
Always remember to click Save.
Disable the Page
Home Menu > Pages
To the right of the Page, you want to add a password click the gear icon.
Scroll down to Enable the page toggle. Click the toggle off and visitors to your website will be unable to view the page.
Always remember to click Save.
Hide the page from search engines
Squarespace Knowledge Base does a excellent job showing you specifics about hiding a page from search engines by adding a “noindex” tag. Read Hiding pages from search engine results for detailed information.
Pages that do not need to go into the Navigation Menu can still be viewed by visitors. Here are some ways for visitors to see this Not Linked information:
Add text links on linked pages
Add buttons to link to Not Linked pages
Create clickable images to the Not Linked pages
Share the links outside the webpage
One way to keep your website fresh and clean is by adding Not Linked pages and directing visitors to those pages with a clickable link on a word, picture or button. This will keep too much extra information in another place. The importance of a website is to welcome a visitor 24/7 and show them around. Show them who your business or organization is in an straightforward way. Too much information can be confusing.
If you would like help organizing and designing your website, please contact May Web Design, LLC. Working with the client to know their needs for the small business or nonprofit organization is important to us.
