What are the disadvantages of Google Sites?
While Google Sites is an easy-to-use, simple website builder, it also comes with several disadvantages.
The biggest disadvantages of Google Sites is that it's simply not a flexible or feature-rich website-building platform.
Google Sites has limited customization options, built-in marketing, customer support, scalability, eCommerce or SEO opportunities, and integrations with third-party tools.
Let’s dive deeper into the above disadvantages of Google Sites now.
Top 8 Disadvantages of Google Sites
1. Limited customization
Google Sites is loved by so many due to its user-friendly interface and integration with other Google products.
However, this simplicity is also a limiting factor for those businesses requiring more advanced features and customization options.
Google Sites only offers six pre-made themes and 18 templates (February 2025), which is a significantly lower number than other Google Sites competitors.
These pre-built themes and templates are also quite limited in terms of color schemes and layout options, making it difficult to build a truly unique and visually compelling site.
As a result, many Google Sites websites end up looking similar, and businesses may struggle to build a site that aligns with their brand identity.
While creating your own templates and themes is possible, this isn’t an ideal solution for beginners or those looking to build a website quickly.
And even if you do create your own templates and themes, the customization options are still restricted! (more on this next).
Beyond basic template and theme design editing, Google Sites is also very limited in terms of elements within your website.
Don’t get me wrong; I love how easily you can integrate other Google Apps into your website, such as Google Maps, Docs, and Forms.
However, you can't add any other advanced widgets, plugins, or tools to enhance functionality.
Google Sites' lack of support for extensive customization may be a significant drawback for users who want to incorporate interactive or dynamic elements.
This limitation can restrict the ability to create a truly engaging and immersive website user experience!
2. Poor SEO capabilities
Google Sites has the potential to rank well in search results (simply because it’s a Google product), but, unfortunately, it falls short in terms of SEO.
The platform lacks essential features like meta-tag editing and structured data, and easy sitemap adjustments are typically sub-par (or non-existent).
As a result, optimizing your site for search engines is naturally more challenging!
For those serious about attracting organic traffic, there are more effective website builders out there, such as WordPress, Wix, or Shopify.
3. Restricted eCommerce features
Let’s face it: Google Sites wasn’t designed for eCommerce; therefore, it’s no surprise that this Google Sites disadvantage makes the list!
The good news is that while Google Sites doesn’t have any native eCommerce functionality, you can build a basic online store with Google Sites through third-party tools like Ecwid.
However, this integration is limited and doesn’t offer advanced eCommerce features that can process complex transactions or manage customer behavior.
Plus, the free Ecwid plan only lets you upload and sell five products.
If you’re looking to build, customize, and manage a large, fully-fledged online store, there are certainly better options, such as Shopify or WooCommerce.
4. Limited website scalability
Google Sites excels at creating simple, small websites, but quite honestly, if you’re looking to build a bigger, more complex site, you’ll be disappointed.
This is largely due to its limited storage capacities (100MB for free accounts) and difficult-to-scale structure.
Essentially, Google Sites is simply not equipped to support growth.
As your website needs evolve (whether that’s adding more content, in-depth functionality, or accommodating increased traffic), Google Sites will start to show its limitations.
You’ll likely encounter performance issues (or outgrow the platform’s capabilities), which may force you to migrate your site to a more robust website builder.
And as we will soon discover, migrating your Google Sites website to another platform is another Google Sites disadvantage!
If you anticipate long-term growth, I highly recommend using another website builder that supports scalability and business growth.
5. Basic marketing features
When it comes to built-in marketing tools, Google Sites is also quite limited.
Of course, you can also use other Google products, such as Google Analytics (to gather data about your website) and Google Forms (to capture leads).
However, Google Sites lacks more advanced features like pop-ups, live chat, and integrations with other marketing tools like Facebook Pixel.
If you want to engage with your audience more effectively or track your marketing performance, unfortunately, you won’t find it with Google Sites.
6. Lack of third-party integrations
Unlike more advanced website builders like WordPress, Google Sites doesn’t easily support third-party integrations, especially those outside of Google’s ecosystem.
While you can use the ‘Embed’ block to add code snippets for some integrations, this process is clunky and may actually slow down your site.
And if you’re looking to integrate other external platforms like email marketing or CRM tools into your website, you’re out of luck.
7. Limited customer support
Google Sites is known for being user-friendly, which is great….until you run into trouble.
This is because customer support options are limited within Google Sites.
While community forums and essential help resources are available, the lack of dedicated customer support is, quite frankly, frustrating.
Users with more complex questions or urgent issues may struggle to find assistance quickly with Google Sites.
8. Complicated migration process
As mentioned earlier, migrating a Google Site to another platform is time-consuming and complicated.
Whether you decide against using Google Sites (or if you simply outgrow it), you must manually copy and paste text, download images, and reconfigure any Google integrations.
Additionally, migrating a custom domain and adjusting SEO settings on a new platform is a lengthy task!
This makes switching platforms extremely challenging, especially for beginners or time-poor business owners.
How much is Google Sites?
Google Sites is completely free to use! With your free Google account, you can set up, launch, and manage your small business without any additional costs.
If you want additional features, such as extra storage, administrative tools, and enhanced collaboration, you must upgrade to a paid Google Workspace plan.
These plans start at $6 per user per month and include Google Sites at no additional charge.
Is Google Sites good for small businesses?
While this article has focused heavily on Google Sites' disadvantages, the platform is an excellent tool for small businesses that need basic websites.
I recommend Google Sites for any individual or business owner looking to quickly create a website for their small local, e-commerce, or service-based business.
However, as your needs grow, the platform’s limitations—especially in design, functionality, and scalability—become more apparent.
For businesses or more complex sites, other website builders may be a better fit.
Sheetify CRM and Google Sites
How can you integrate my Google Sheets CRM template, Sheetify CRM, into your Google Sites website?
Sheetify CRM is an all-in-one Google Sheets template built entirely with Google Sheets and Apps Script.
This impressive, simple, functional CRM business toolkit seamlessly integrates with other Google Apps and products, such as Google Sites.
With Sheetify CRM, you can easily capture your website leads by combining Sheetify CRM, Google Forms, and Google Sites!
To do this:
● Purchase, download, and set up your Sheetify Google Sheets CRM template.
● Select ‘Sheetify > Set up Sheetify’ from the top menu within the template.
● Click ‘Create a Form,’ then select the new sheet (automatically created) at the bottom of the template called ‘Form responses.’
● Rename the new sheet to ‘Website Leads.’
● Select ‘Tools > Manage Form > Edit Form’ in the top menu.
● Customize the Google Form details, such as the theme, colors, text, and form fields, to represent what you want to display on your website lead form.
● Head to the backend of your Google Site website and select the page where you want to embed the Google lead form.
● Select ‘Google Form’ from the right-hand sidebar (you may need to scroll down).
● Click on the form you just created.
● If necessary, adjust the dimensions of your Google Form, add an image, change the background color, etc.
● Select ‘Publish’.
And that is it!
Now, when a visitor fills out the Google Form from your Google Sites website, you can automatically view the response within the ‘Website Leads’ sheet in Sheetify CRM.
Then, highlight the data from your form and copy and paste it into the ‘Contacts & Leads’ sheet within Sheetify CRM.
This essentially adds the website visitor as a new lead within your Sheetify CRM Google template, allowing you to track and manage your new potential customer seamlessly.
Read more about using Sheetify CRM to manage and track leads here.
Note: You can also embed a Sheetify CRM Google Form to any website by selecting ‘Send’ and then the ‘Embed’ icon (< >) within your Google Form.
Then, simply copy and paste the embed code onto any website.
Check out a detailed walkthrough of this process here.
Find out more about Sheetify CRM and my other Google Sheets business toolkits here!
