If your site is loading slowly, here are some common issues you can troubleshoot.
Note: To see if a site loading problem is a system-wide issue, check our Status page.
Too much content
When a browser first loads a page, it downloads all of the page's content. This can seriously affect load times if your page has a large amount of content. Load time also depends on the bandwidth of the computer or device a visitor uses to view your site. Depending on the browser, some content may be cached to decrease load times on subsequent visits.
A page containing more than 1 MB of content could cause noticeably slow loading on a cellular connection. For a broadband connection, 5 to 10 MB on a page may increase load times to noticeable levels.
To avoid these issues, we recommend:
- Using image files of less than 500 KB.
- Spreading out content across multiple pages.
- Using excerpts in Blog Pages with lots of content. This prevents browsers from loading everything at once and can improve load times.
- Remove unnecessary third-party widgets from your sidebar. When you embed content from third-party sites, the browser must download the content from their server before your page will load.
Older browsers
We support the browser versions listed in this guide for viewing and editing your site. Viewing or editing a site on older browser version could cause loading issues.
Check if your browser is current and download the latest version here. For additional resources, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox have a built-in tools you can use to investigate loading issues.
Local connection
If you're experiencing loading issues on pages with small amounts of content while using an up-to-date browser, this could indicate an issue with your local network.
Try viewing your site on another network, or ask a friend using a different connection to view your site, to determine whether this is a contributing issue.
You can also troubleshoot this with a speed test. If your upload and download speeds are lower than what your Internet service provider has promised, contact them to see if there might be an issue.
You can also check status.squarespace.com to see if your issue extends to all Squarespace sites.
Custom code
Custom code—including third-party embed code, code injections, and CSS—may cause your site to load slowly. When troubleshooting load time issues, remove all custom code from your site, save it in a text document for safe keeping, then refresh the page.
Note: Adding code to your site is an advanced modification that falls outside of the scope of Squarespace support.
Fonts
As a general design rule, we recommend you use no more than two fonts throughout your site. Reducing the number of fonts on your site can also help improve loading time.
When a browser loads any page on your site, it first loads all the fonts that are set in the Style Editor. If you have many different fonts, all of them must load before the page can appear in the browser.
To optimize loading time, use web-safe fonts, which are fonts that most browsers and operating systems recognize. In the Style Editor, these fonts are web-safe:
- Arial
- Courier New
- Georgia
- Lucida Sans Unicode
- Times New Roman
- Verdana
Further testing
A variety of other factors can affect your site's load time. This includes:
- Computer memory/capacity
- External scripts added to the site
- Multiple embedded videos loading simultaneously
- Local network firewalls
- Anti-virus software
- Browser add-ons
If you’ve checked for the potential culprits above and our Status page doesn't mention a system-wide issue, open a ticket letting us know what you've tried so we can investigate further.
Note: If you use custom code on your site, please remove the code and save it in a text document before opening a ticket, even if you've determined the code isn't responsible.