I moved Big Picture Web from version five of the Squarespace web publishing platform to their newest product, Squarespace 6, over the weekend. And although the process was mostly harmless, there were a few sticking points I had to consider.

Take a look at the new Big Picture Web this week​ and learn a few things about moving your site to Squarespace 6.

Quick Checklist to Move from Squarepace v5 to 6

As I was planning the move from Squarespace v5 to 6, I realized there was an organized way to go about this. I took a few minutes and mapped out the following plan of attack after reading up on the official Squarespace FAQ:

1. ​Take an inventory of any page on your v5 Squarespace site that has received traffic in the past six months using Google Analytics. ​Export these pages to Excel. 
2. Add a few columns to Excel to group pages together by type (e.g., secondary, blog, primary, etc.)​, the new URL for the page in Squarespace 6, and the status of the move for each URL. This audit/inventory will help you stay organized during the move.
3. Import your Squarespace v5 account to a new Squarespace 6 account​
4. Use your Excel sheet as a worksheet to go through each type of pages on your site, page by page, until you have verified that all pages have mapped over to Squarespace 6​
5. ​If you have to move or delete any pages, make sure you use the Squarespace 301 redirect tool in the advanced administrative controls. Failing to do so may result in lost website traffic from search engines and a poorer experience for your visitors.
6. Some pages may not look like they did on your old site. You'll have to re-create these pages in Squarespace 6 using the sweet new LayoutEngine. Use your worksheet to keep track of the pages that have mapped over, yet still require additional design re-work.​

Making the Move from Squarespace 5 to 6

Have you made the move yet from Squarespace v5 to Squarespace 6? What concerns or thoughts do you have about the migration? ​What do you think of the new Big Picture Web on Squarespace 6?

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