Join us live on Dec. 11 as we discuss the most-anticipated designs of 2025 with three brand design experts. We think the issue is with the CSS. Although I do wonder if the main issue is with squarespace itself as corroborated by this post: https://forum.squarespace.com/topic/200667-site-speed-and-its-not-the-images/#comment-482416 I'm on Version 7.0– Brine family (Walking Rovers template). Ajax loading is NOT enabled, so that's an option, but squarespace help says it can mess with CSS. When we asked SQUARESPACE helpdesk if we could just disable AJAX if it ends up causing issues, we didn't get a clear answer. A slow site is better than a broken site. So I guess my question is twofold: 1) How easy is it to just revert to the original site if AJAX screws up the CSS and breaks the site? 2) If we shared the speed test results, would someone be able to tell us what is CSS vs standard squarespace code that's causing the issues? I'll add that there seems to be a lot in the CSS about fonts, which I don't quite understand because (I thought) we're using Squarespace-delivered fonts. And I've seen other people comment that using google or typekit fonts works fine on non-squarespace sites. Any help or insight you can provide is very much appreciated. caroline Running a Google Lighthouse test on your site, looks like your images are the largest assets being loaded, followed by some JS files. A quick win would be to compress your images using a free service like https://tinyjpg.com/ and re-upload them on the site. I ran your hero background image on the home page through TinyJPG and it went from 568kb to 270kb , so a 52% savings. See attached screenshot. Squarespace uses Typekit and Google fonts for its font library and I'm not aware of a way of disabling them. If there was a way to disable certain fonts that aren't being used, then that would help in the performance area. People might have better results on non-squarespace sites because they may be able to control the amount of custom fonts loaded on a page. Doesn't look like that's the case with Squarespace. Your site appears to be loading 20 custom fonts. It may be the same font, but different weights. 1. Ajax Page Loading can be enabled and disabled using the toggle in Site Styles . The change is immediate. There are no long term effects. Note that CSS added to the Custom CSS panel is not affected by the Ajax Page Loading setting. It will only affect code that has been added through the Code Injection panel. 2. I do not see any specific issues for this site. It compares well with other Squarespace sites using this template. A blog post page loaded in 2s. Also it's worth noting that your performance results for the sidebar page are only correct if a visitor opened this page directly; they are not representative of someone opening the sidebar as a page component on another page. In those circumstances, Squarespace serves the visitor a much smaller image and this has a much smaller file size. Note that when you upload an image to Squarespace, the platform does some resizing which necessitates re-encoding and re-compressing. If you compress an image before uploading it, the mandatory re-compressing will usually result in a larger file size because the algorithm won't know the difference between "actual image content" and "artifacts of the previous compression run". Was this post helpful? Please give feedback by clicking an icon below ⬇️ Me: I'm Paul, a SQSP user for >18 yrs & Circle Leader since 2017. I value honesty, transparency, diversity and good design ♥.
Work: Founder of SF.DIGITAL . We provide high quality original extensions to supercharge your Squarespace website.
Content: Views and opinions are my own. Links in my posts may refer to my own SF.DIGITAL products or may be affiliate links.
Forum advice is completely free. You can thank me by selecting a feedback emoji. Buying a coffee is generous but optional. 1. Ajax Page Loading can be enabled and disabled using the toggle in Site Styles . The change is immediate. There are no long term effects. Note that CSS added to the Custom CSS panel is not affected by the Ajax Page Loading setting. It will only affect code that has been added through the Code Injection panel. 2. I do not see any specific issues for this site. It compares well with other Squarespace sites using this template. A blog post page loaded in 2s. Also it's worth noting that your performance results for the sidebar page are only correct if a visitor opened this page directly; they are not representative of someone opening the sidebar as a page component on another page. In those circumstances, Squarespace serves the visitor a much smaller image and this has a much smaller file size. Note that when you upload an image to Squarespace, the platform does some resizing which necessitates re-encoding and re-compressing. If you compress an image before uploading it, the mandatory re-compressing will usually result in a larger file size because the algorithm won't know the difference between "actual image content" and "artifacts of the previous compression run". There's nothing technically wrong with pulling in content from other pages. That's how Summary Blocks work. However I would suggest changing the code so that the sidebar content isn't loaded when the user is on a mobile, as it will impact performance for them (on slower networks) and Google don't like slow mobile sites. Me: I'm Paul, a SQSP user for >18 yrs & Circle Leader since 2017. I value honesty, transparency, diversity and good design ♥.
Work: Founder of SF.DIGITAL . We provide high quality original extensions to supercharge your Squarespace website.
Content: Views and opinions are my own. Links in my posts may refer to my own SF.DIGITAL products or may be affiliate links.
Forum advice is completely free. You can thank me by selecting a feedback emoji. Buying a coffee is generous but optional. Note that when you upload an image to Squarespace, the platform does some resizing which necessitates re-encoding and re-compressing. If you compress an image before uploading it, the mandatory re-compressing will usually result in a larger file size because the algorithm won't know the difference between "actual image content" and "artifacts of the previous compression run". 🇫🇷 I'm like a Squarespace French Guide www.florenceredacchef.com
🖤 I'm animating @squaretalk.fr community
⌨️ I've also created @apprendresqsp Me: I'm Paul, a SQSP user for >18 yrs & Circle Leader since 2017. I value honesty, transparency, diversity and good design ♥.
Work: Founder of SF.DIGITAL . We provide high quality original extensions to supercharge your Squarespace website.
Content: Views and opinions are my own. Links in my posts may refer to my own SF.DIGITAL products or may be affiliate links.
Forum advice is completely free. You can thank me by selecting a feedback emoji. Buying a coffee is generous but optional. This is one that keeps coming up. A lot of people, including myself, use tools like Tiny png for fear of uploading files that are too big and slowing a site down. It would be great to remove this pre-compression step from the process. What would you say is the upper limit though? Would you still recommend uploading a 5mb image for instance without first compressing it?

Squarespace Webinars

Free online sessions where you’ll learn the basics and refine your Squarespace skills.