How to move your website to Wix without losing your Google rankings

Moving a website is a bit like moving a shop. If you do it carefully, customers barely notice. If you rush it, people turn up at the old address, find nothing and go elsewhere. With a website, the same thing happens to Google: pages it has already learned about vanish, and visibility you spent years building can fall away.

I move sites to Wix for small businesses regularly, from WordPress, Squarespace and older Wix builds. This is the process I follow, in plain English, so you can understand what a careful migration involves and what to ask about.

Why moving can hurt rankings

Google ranks individual web addresses. If your page at /plumbing-services is doing well and the new site calls it /services/plumbing with no link between the two, Google treats the old page as gone and the new one as brand new. Add the loss of page titles, headings and text that helped it rank, and visibility can drop quickly.

None of this is inevitable. A careful move keeps the useful content, preserves or redirects the old addresses and checks everything after launch. Even then, expect some short-term movement while Google reprocesses the site. Nobody can promise rankings will stay exactly the same, but a good process gives you the best chance of keeping what you’ve earned.

Step 1: list everything that exists now

Before touching anything, make a full inventory of your current site. That means:

• Every page address (URL), including blog posts, services, location pages and landing pages
• Page titles and meta descriptions
• Which pages get the most visits and which bring in enquiries or sales
• Which pages other websites link to
• Any forms, booking tools, shop features or integrations

Google Search Console and your analytics show which pages matter most. A crawling tool can list all addresses. Keep this in a spreadsheet. It becomes your checklist for the whole project.

Step 2: decide what stays, what goes and what merges

Not every page deserves to survive. Thin, outdated or duplicate pages can be merged or retired. Strong pages should be kept and improved. For each address, decide one of:

• Keep with the same address
• Keep with a new address and a redirect
• Merge into another page, with a redirect
• Retire, with a redirect to the closest relevant page

If a page has ranked well for years, think twice before changing its address, title or main content.

Step 3: keep the same addresses where you can

The simplest way to protect rankings is to keep addresses unchanged. Wix lets you set page addresses, so where the old URL is sensible, I recreate it exactly. If the old site had awkward addresses with dates or numbers in them, we might choose cleaner ones, but only when the benefit is worth the redirect work.

Be aware of differences between platforms. For example, some platforms add folders such as /blog/ or /product/ in different places. Check each one rather than assuming they match.

Step 4: map every old address to a new one with redirects

For every old address that will change or disappear, set up a permanent redirect, known as a 301, to the most relevant new page. Redirects tell Google and visitors where the content has moved. Wix has a redirect manager where these can be added, including in bulk.

Good redirect habits:

• Redirect to the closest equivalent page, not just the homepage
• Avoid chains where A goes to B goes to C
• Don’t leave important old addresses unredirected, as they’ll turn into error pages
• Include old image, PDF and blog addresses that have links pointing at them

Step 5: carry over the on-page SEO

Move across, or improve, the things Google reads:

• Page titles and meta descriptions
• Headings, with one main heading per page
• Body text that already performs
• Image descriptions (alt text)
• Internal links between pages
• Structured data where relevant, such as business details and FAQs

This is also the chance to fix problems: missing descriptions, duplicate titles, slow images and pages that don’t work on a phone.

Step 6: build and test on a private preview first

I build the new site on a private preview, not on your live domain. That lets us check design, content, forms, speed and mobile layout without any risk. Before launch, I check that:

• Every important page exists and loads
• Forms send to the right place
• Phone numbers and email links work
• Redirect rules are entered correctly
• Titles, descriptions and headings match the plan
• Nothing is accidentally set to be hidden from search engines

Step 7: choose a quiet time to launch

Switching a domain across takes planning. Pick a time that isn’t your busiest period, and make sure you have access to your domain registrar and any email settings. If email is tied to your current hosting, plan that carefully so it doesn’t drop out. Keep the old site and its files backed up for a while after launch in case you need to refer to something.

Step 8: check everything straight after launch

On launch day and for the weeks after, I check:

• Key pages load on the new domain
• Redirects work, using a list of old addresses
• The site is open to search engines
• A new sitemap is submitted in Google Search Console
• Search Console shows no surge of errors
• Forms, bookings and shop checkouts work end to end
• Analytics is connected and recording

Google can take a little while to reprocess a site, so expect some fluctuation. Look at trends over weeks rather than hours.

Step 9: watch and tidy for the next few months

Over the following weeks, review Search Console for crawl errors and pages not indexed, check your most important pages’ performance and fix any redirects or links that were missed. Update external listings, like your Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles, so they point at the right addresses.

Moving from specific platforms

• From WordPress: I can move content across, rebuild the design on Wix and map old permalinks to new addresses. Check any plugins that did something important, like forms, booking or shop features, and plan how each will be replaced.
• From Squarespace: similar approach. Check blog and product addresses, which often follow set patterns.
• From an older Wix site: usually the easiest, as page addresses and many features carry over, though a redesign is a good time to tidy structure.
• From WooCommerce: products, categories and order history need extra care. I’d look at your catalogue first and talk honestly about whether a move makes sense. My page on web design for retail and e-commerce goes into more detail.

Questions to ask any designer about a move

• How will you protect my existing Google rankings?
• Will you set up 301 redirects, and can I see the list?
• Will page titles and descriptions be carried over?
• How will you handle my email when the domain moves?
• What will you check after launch?
• Who owns the new site and domain at the end?

If the answer to the ranking question is “don’t worry, it’ll be fine” with no detail, press for more.

Should you move at all?

Sometimes the best answer is not to. If your current site is doing its job, loads quickly and is easy to maintain, a redesign might be unnecessary. I wrote an honest comparison in Wix or WordPress for a small business website, and a guide to signs it’s time to redesign. If you decide to go ahead, my redesign and migration service is built around this process, and I work with businesses across Australia.

Not sure whether to move? Send me your site for a free website audit and I’ll tell you honestly what I’d keep, what I’d change and whether moving makes sense, or book a free 15-minute call.