Intro
Bricks is a great tool, but beginners tend to hit the same 5 pitfalls — none of them fatal, but they waste time and some can hurt you at launch. Here are the most-reported issues from the community plus lessons from real-world builds, so you can skip the trial and error.
Pitfall 1: Search Visibility Left Checked (Nothing Gets Indexed After Launch)
Symptom: a month after launch, Google hasn’t indexed a single page.
Cause: during development you checked “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” under Settings → Reading, and forgot to uncheck it at launch.
How to avoid it:
- Checking it during development is fine (keeps test pages out of the index)
- Put this in big letters at the top of your launch SOP: uncheck “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” (Kevin Geary, a leading voice in the Bricks community, puts it bluntly: “This checkbox will screw you”)
- After launch, use GSC’s URL Inspection tool to request indexing for the homepage
Pitfall 2: Too Many Plugins (Performance Slide)
Symptom: a Bricks site’s PageSpeed drops from 98 to 70.
Cause: Bricks’ core is strong, but people coming from the Elementor habit of “solving everything with a plugin” pile plugins onto a Bricks site — and the plugins cancel out Bricks’ performance advantage.
How to avoid it:
- Only install plugins for what Bricks doesn’t do well: forms (WS Form), SEO (RankMath), image compression (ShortPixel), performance (Perfmatters)
- If Bricks can do it natively, don’t install a plugin (dynamic data, Query Loop, and conditional logic are all built in)
- Audit regularly: deactivate plugins you’re not using instead of leaving them around
Pitfall 3: Google Fonts Loaded Externally (Performance + GDPR)
Symptom: PageSpeed flags “reduce unused JavaScript” or too many external requests; European visitors get a GDPR consent popup.
Cause: with Bricks’ default settings, using Google Fonts loads font files from fonts.googleapis.com — 2–3 extra external requests, plus a data-compliance problem in Europe (font requests send visitor IPs to Google).
How to avoid it:
- Settings → Theme Styles → General → disable Google Fonts
- Use the “custom fonts” feature to host font files on your own server (local loading)
- All font requests now go through your own domain — faster and compliant
Pitfall 4: CSS Class Chaining Left On (Dirty Code)
Symptom: the generated HTML/CSS is full of chained classes like .container--blue--mt-24 — messy code that’s hard to maintain.
Cause: Bricks enables “CSS class chaining” by default, stacking combinations of classes onto elements.
How to avoid it:
- Settings → Theme Styles → Performance → disable chaining, and switch to “generate element IDs and classes on demand”
- ⚠️ Note: if you use Automatic CSS (ACSS), wait for an ACSS update that supports this before disabling it (Kevin Geary’s tested advice: give it one release cycle, otherwise you can break the site)
- Once disabled, the output is much cleaner — a joy for anyone who loves hand-written CSS
Pitfall 5: Accidental Drag-Handle Edits (Random Spacing Appears)
Symptom: mid-build, elements suddenly have margin/padding you never remember adding.
Cause: Bricks’ canvas has “drag handles” (spacing handles) that snap as your mouse passes over them; one accidental drag adds spacing to the element.
How to avoid it:
- Settings → Theme Styles → Element Actions → disable drag handles
- Set spacing with value inputs (precise) instead of dragging (by feel) — “Be a pro, stop dragging your cute little margin and padding handles around” (Kevin Geary’s words)
The Complete Checklist (Bookmark This)
□ Before launch: uncheck search visibility ✅
□ Plugins only fill gaps; audit and deactivate regularly ✅
□ Disable Google Fonts; host fonts locally ✅
□ Disable class chaining (ACSS users: wait for a compatible version) ✅
□ Disable drag handles; set spacing with values ✅
□ Use a child theme; don't edit the parent theme directly ✅ (see the install guide)Already Hit a Pitfall? Here’s How to Recover
- Page error/white screen: deactivate the most recently installed plugins first, then try Bricks → Tools → Rebuild
- Broken styles: check whether class chaining is on and whether your ACSS version is compatible
- Slow site: Perfmatters one-click optimization + image compression (see the performance tutorial)
One-Line Summary
Bricks’ pitfalls are all configuration issues, not tool issues — follow the 5 fixes above and your Bricks site is clean from day one. Happy building!