What Squarespace's AI Visibility Tool Told Us About Our Own Website
Squarespace has added an AI Visibility tool to 7.1 sites, and before recommending it to anyone we pointed it at ourselves. It seemed only fair.
The results were mixed, and more useful for it. Every branded question, the ones that name Made by Dave, came back mentioned by both AI assistants the tool checks. Four of the five non-branded questions, the kind someone asks before they've heard of us, came back with at least one cross.
The tool sits in the SEO / AI Visibility panel on Squarespace 7.1 sites, works in English, and is available on every website plan. It runs a list of prompts through AI assistants and reports, for each one, whether your business was mentioned, which other businesses were recommended instead, and which sources the answer cited. Branded prompts include your business name. Non-branded prompts describe what you do without naming you. Our run on 27 August 2026 covered five of each: all five branded prompts came back mentioned by both engines, while on the non-branded side one was mentioned by both, one by a single engine, and three by neither. Squarespace folds the results into a search visibility score, which only reaches 100% when every prompt comes back as mentioned and the pages and images in its SEO report have alt text and meta descriptions.
What the tool does
You'll find it in the SEO / AI Visibility panel. According to Squarespace's Help Center article on AI-powered search, it's available in English on version 7.1 sites, on all website plans.
The tool suggests prompts, meaning questions people might put to an AI assistant, and you can edit them, add your own and choose which AI engines to test. Each run uses AI credits. How many credits you get depends on your plan, and Squarespace shows the cost and your remaining balance before you run anything.
For each prompt the verdict is simple: your business was mentioned, or it wasn't. Squarespace also shows which other businesses were recommended and which sources were cited, and that second part is the more useful one.
Branded and non-branded prompts
Branded prompts include your business name, like "What services does [your business] offer?" Non-branded prompts leave the name out and focus on your industry, products or area. Squarespace's own example is "Who are the top web designers in Chicago?"
Branded results tell you whether AI assistants understand who you are. Non-branded results tell you whether they think of you when someone doesn't already know your name, and for most businesses that's where new customers come from.
What our results showed
Our branded prompts, including questions about our Designer for a Day service, how to contact us and whether we provide training after a build, were all mentioned by both engines.
The non-branded prompts were a mixed bag:
Finding a reputable Squarespace designer in London: mentioned by both
Expert Squarespace design services in the UK: mentioned by one, not the other
Help improving the design and functionality of an existing Squarespace site: not mentioned
Professional help setting up an online store on Squarespace: not mentioned
Personalised training on managing a Squarespace website: not mentioned
We do all of those things, and have for years, which is what made the result useful rather than annoying. Our reading is that we had service pages written the way service pages usually are, describing what we offer, but nothing that answered those specific questions the way somebody would actually ask them. An AI assistant answering "who can help me improve my existing Squarespace site" needs a page that discusses improving an existing Squarespace site, in detail, with the options laid out. A page headed "Services" doesn't give it much to work with, however good the work behind it is.
AI answers can vary between runs, too, so we treat any single result as a reason to look closer rather than a final verdict.
Why businesses don't get mentioned
Is any of this worth your time yet? Similarweb's 2026 estimates put AI referral traffic to websites at around 770 million visits a month worldwide, up 117% year on year, while noting in the same breath that AI referrals remain a low single-digit percentage of most sites' total traffic. Those are modelled estimates from a company that sells AI visibility products, so the direction is more reliable than the decimal places. For a small business, that makes AI visibility worth an hour a quarter rather than a budget line, helped by the fact that most of the work behind it (clear pages, honest answers, decent meta descriptions) improves ordinary search results too.
There's no published formula for how AI assistants choose who to recommend, so be wary of anyone selling one. What Squarespace advises comes down to a few things, plus one more from our own work.
Let AI crawlers in. Squarespace has a setting called "Block known artificial intelligence crawlers". If it's switched on, AI tools may not be able to read your content, and Squarespace's advice is to untick it.
Complete the basics. Squarespace's search visibility score only reaches 100% when the pages and images in its SEO report have alt text and meta descriptions, and every prompt comes back as mentioned.
Answer real questions plainly. AI assistants draw on pages that state things clearly. A service page promising "bespoke digital solutions" gives them nothing to quote.
Be mentioned beyond your own site. For "who offers" questions especially, the cited sources are often directories, lists and other people's websites. Your own site is only part of the picture.
What we changed
Rather than rewriting our service pages, we've published articles that answer the questions behind those prompts properly, with the detail someone would want before hiring anyone:
What we keep finding when we audit Squarespace websites, for improving an existing site
Selling online in the UK with Squarespace, for setting up an online store
Why Squarespace sites stop getting updated after launch, for personalised training
What Squarespace badges mean when you're hiring a designer in the UK, for expert design services in the UK
Each one ends with short, direct answers to the questions people actually ask, marked up so they're easy to lift. The articles are spaced a few days apart rather than published in one go, partly because that's a saner publishing rhythm and partly because it lets us see whether anything moves. We'll rerun the prompts over the coming weeks and watch the trend rather than any single result, which is the only sensible way to read a measurement that varies between runs.
How to use the tool on your own site
Run the suggested prompts once to get a baseline.
Edit the non-branded prompts so they match how your customers phrase things.
For every cross, read which businesses were recommended and which sources were cited.
Check whether you have a page that answers that question clearly. If you don't, write one.
Check the basics: AI crawlers allowed, meta descriptions written, alt text added.
Rerun after a few weeks and compare.
If you'd like help working out why your business isn't being mentioned, get in touch. It's a problem we've been working on for our own site as well as for clients, and an audit and review is a sensible first step if the site itself needs attention.
FAQs
What does Squarespace's AI Visibility tool do?
It runs a set of prompts through AI assistants and shows, for each prompt, whether your business was mentioned in the answer, which other businesses were recommended, and which sources the assistant cited. The prompts are suggested by Squarespace and you can edit them, add your own and choose which AI engines to test. It sits in the SEO / AI Visibility panel on Squarespace 7.1 sites, is available on every website plan in English, and uses AI credits allocated according to your plan, with the cost of a run and your remaining balance shown before you start. Results feed a search visibility score alongside the SEO report.
What's the difference between branded and non-branded prompts in Squarespace AI Visibility?
Branded prompts include your business name, for example asking what services a named business offers. Non-branded prompts cover your industry, products or location without naming you, which shows whether AI tools recommend you to people who don't already know your business.
Why isn't my business mentioned in AI answers?
Common reasons include AI crawlers being blocked in Squarespace's settings, having no page that answers the question clearly, and few mentions of your business on other websites. Squarespace also recommends completing SEO basics such as meta descriptions and alt text, which count towards its search visibility score.
Does blocking AI crawlers affect Squarespace AI Visibility?
It can. Squarespace advises unticking the "Block known artificial intelligence crawlers" setting so AI tools can access your content.
