How to move off Wix without losing your Google rankings

Plenty of small businesses stay on Wix long after it stops working for them, because they're afraid a move will wipe out the Google rankings they've built. Rankings rarely disappear because of the move itself. They disappear because old page addresses stop working. Here's how to move without that happening, based on a migration we did for a two-office eye practice in Michigan.

Why rankings drop after a move

Google ranks individual page addresses (URLs), not your business as a whole. Each address builds up history: links from other sites, bookmarks, and Google's own record of how useful the page is. When a rebuild changes those addresses and an old one starts showing "page not found", that history is thrown away.

Missing redirects are the main reason rankings fall after a migration. The other common causes are page titles and descriptions that didn't carry over, and pages that used to rank but were dropped from the new site with no replacement.

Step 1: List every address your Wix site has

• Your Wix sitemap. Wix generates one automatically at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. It lists the pages Wix tells Google about.
• Google Search Console. The Pages and Performance reports show the addresses Google actually knows and sends visitors to, including some that aren't in the sitemap.
• Odd auto-generated addresses. Wix gives some pages names like /general-6. Aggarwal Eye Care's old site had exactly that one, and it needed a redirect like every other page.

While you're in the Performance report, note which pages get the most search clicks. Those are the pages you most need to protect.

Step 2: Map each old address to its new page

Make a two-column list: the old address on the left, the new page that replaces it on the right. Point each old page at its closest equivalent — services to services, contact to contact. Don't send everything to the home page: Google tends to treat a batch of old pages that all land on the home page as missing pages, which throws away the point of redirecting them. If a page has no direct replacement, choose the most relevant section page instead.

Step 3: Add permanent (301) redirects on the new site

A 301 redirect tells browsers and Google that a page has moved for good, so visitors and rankings follow it to the new address. Where you add them depends on the new host:

• Netlify, where Aggarwal Eye Care's new site runs: one line per page in a file called _redirects, for example /general-6 /new-page 301.
• Apache hosting, which most cPanel hosts use: one line per page in .htaccess, for example Redirect 301 /general-6 /new-page.
• WordPress: a redirect plugin does the same job without editing files.

In each case, replace /new-page with the address of the page that replaced the old one.

Step 4: Carry over what Google already trusts

A rebuild is a good moment to fix weak page titles. Aggarwal Eye Care's home page went from "HOME | aggarwal-eye-care" to "Aggarwal Eye Care — Ophthalmologists in Taylor & Livonia MI". But keep every page that currently earns search clicks, with content at least as complete as before, and give every page its own title and description.

Before launch, make sure the new site isn't still set to "noindex" or blocked in robots.txt. Both are common leftovers from building a site on a test address, and either one tells Google to stay away.

Step 5: Make the switchover reversible

• Leave the old Wix site untouched until the new one has been live and checked. Don't delete it or cancel the plan on launch day.
• Record your DNS settings before changing anything — a screenshot of every record is enough. We did exactly this for Aggarwal Eye Care, so the practice could have returned to its old site within 30 minutes if anything had gone wrong.
• Check what else uses your domain. If your business email runs on the same domain, its MX records must come across unchanged or your email stops working. The same goes for verification records used by Google and other services.
• If you bought the domain through Wix, you can keep it there and point it at the new host. Transferring it elsewhere can wait until the move has settled.

Step 6: Check everything after launch

• Test every old address on your list. Each should redirect once, straight to its new page — not to "page not found", and not through a chain of redirects. A crawler such as Screaming Frog, free for up to 500 addresses, can check the whole list in one go.
• Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console, and use URL Inspection to request indexing of your most important pages.
• Watch the Pages report for new "Not found (404)" errors over the next few weeks, and redirect anything you missed.
• Expect some movement. A short dip while Google processes the redirects is normal. Google says processing URL changes can take a while, with important pages handled first.
• Keep the redirects. Google recommends keeping them in place for at least a year. For a small business site there's no reason to ever remove them.

A real example: Aggarwal Eye Care, Michigan

Aggarwal Eye Care is a two-office ophthalmology practice in Taylor and Livonia, Michigan. Its five-page Wix site had no online booking and a home page weighed down by the website builder's own code. We rebuilt it as a hand-built static site on Netlify with nine pages, redirected every old address including /general-6, and left the Wix site untouched with its DNS settings recorded for a 30-minute rollback.

Read the full case study, with drag-to-compare screenshots of the old and new site.

The checklist

1. List every old address from your Wix sitemap and Google Search Console.
2. Map each one to its closest new page.
3. Add a 301 redirect for every old address on the new host.
4. Keep the pages that earn clicks, with real titles and descriptions.
5. Screenshot your DNS settings, and keep the old site and your email records intact.
6. Launch, test every old address, and submit the new sitemap.
7. Keep the redirects in place permanently.

Sources

• Google Search Central — Site moves with URL changes
• Google Search Central — Redirects and Google Search