Squarespace for MIT sites

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Q: Should I use Squarespace for my MIT site?

Answer

You can use Squarespace (www.squarespace.com) for your MIT site, with some caveats.

Details

Instead of setting up a site at MIT, some people set up websites with an external web hosting company, and then ask for an MIT site name to point to the external site hosted with the company. MIT IS&T can normally do this, after collecting some information required for the connection.

For the case of sites hosted on Squarespace, Squarespace requires a more elaborate connection than most hosts require. (Technical details: We can provide a CNAME in DNS for the outside site, but Squarespace insists upon multiple "verification" DNS records in addition, or it will not serve the page in question.)

There are three DNS records we have to hand edit into our DNS files. The most important, and unique to each site, is an authorization record comprised of a long alphanumeric string. We want these as text we can copy/paste to avoid transcription errors. The client obtains these via their site management UI. Instructions can be found on Squarespace's help pages.

The extra setup makes it more difficult for MIT IS&T to connect an MIT name to a Squarespace site, but it is a service we still provide.

Resources

For information about hosting a site at MIT, see:

• What are my options for making a website at MIT?
• Website and Server Hosting