How to move off Wix without losing your Google ranking

Leaving Wix is easy. Leaving Wix without losing the Google rankings, links and email you've built is where most moves go wrong. The new site launches, the old page addresses stop working, emails start bouncing, and a few weeks later the phone is quieter and nobody knows why.

We've moved businesses off Wix with every link and every email record intact. Housecall Auto Mechanics, a mobile mechanic in Myrtle Beach, came off a 2015 Wix template with 9 of 9 email records carried over and 0 old links broken, and sits at the top of Google's local results for mobile mechanic in Myrtle Beach. Here's how it's done.

Why rankings get lost in a move

Google ranks pages, not businesses. Every page on your old site has an address, and Google has spent years learning what each one is about and how much to trust it. If those addresses stop working after the switch, that history doesn't move to the new site on its own. It just ends.

Wix sites make this easy to get wrong, because their page addresses are often auto-generated (things like /copy-of-services or /blank-2) and nobody remembers they exist. Google remembers.

The move, step by step

1. List every addressEvery page on the old site, plus every URL Google has indexed for it. Search Console's page report and a site search on Google both help. Miss one, and that page's history is gone.
2. Map old to newMatch each old address to the right page on the new site. Never send everything to the home page; Google treats that almost like a broken link.
3. Write permanent redirectsEach old address gets a 301 redirect to its new home. A 301 tells search engines the move is permanent, so the page's standing carries across.
4. Copy DNS and email exactlyBefore anything switches, copy every DNS record: the mail records (MX), the email authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and any verification records. This is what keeps your email from bouncing.
5. Switch, then check everythingPoint the domain at the new site, confirm the security certificate, send and receive test email, and click through the old links to see each one land.
6. Tell GoogleKeep your Search Console verification, submit the new sitemap, and watch the reports for errors in the days after.

Wix-specific things to watch

• Your domain may be registered through Wix. You don't have to transfer it to switch; you can point it at the new site by changing its settings. If you do transfer it, domains are usually locked for 60 days after a registration or transfer, so plan around that.
• Your email may be set up through Wix. If your business email was bought through Wix, find out where it really lives before you touch anything, and copy its records first.
• Your blog and store have their own addresses. Blog posts and product pages each need their own redirects, not just the main pages.
• Forms and bookings live inside Wix. Export anything you need, like past form entries or customer lists, before you cancel.
• Don't cancel Wix the same day. Leave it running until the new site, the redirects and your email are all confirmed working.

What to expect after the switch

Rankings can wobble for a few days after any move while Google re-reads the site, and nobody can honestly promise otherwise. With every address redirected and the new site faster and better structured than the old one, they usually settle at or above where they were.

The same steps apply to Squarespace, GoDaddy's builder or an old WordPress site. The platform changes; the work doesn't.