How to Migrate From Wix to WordPress
A step-by-step plan for moving a Wix site to WordPress without losing rankings, covering content export, URL mapping, redirects and what to check after launch.
Migrating from Wix to WordPress means exporting your content, rebuilding it on WordPress, and 301-redirecting every old URL to its new address before the Wix site goes offline. Done in that order, with redirects mapped before launch, the platform switch does not have to cost you rankings.
This is one path through the bigger question of which website builder actually supports SEO — leaving Wix is usually a response to hitting its ceiling, not a sign WordPress is required for every site.
On this page
Why leave Wix in the first place?
Usually one of three reasons: you need a content model Wix cannot support, you want plugin-level control over technical SEO, or you have outgrown Wix's page and blog limits. None of these is a sign Wix is "bad" for every site — our piece on whether Wix is bad for SEO covers what it does and does not handle well — but once a site needs custom taxonomies, deeper structured data, or a specific plugin, WordPress's flexibility becomes the more direct route to the outcome than fighting Wix's editor.
Confirm the reason before you start, because it changes the plan. If you are leaving for flexibility, keep the URL structure identical and change only the platform underneath it. If you are also restructuring the site — new sections, a different blog taxonomy — treat that as a second project after the migration has settled, not a simultaneous one.
It also changes the timeline. A like-for-like migration, where every page keeps roughly the same content and URL, can move quickly because the redirect map is close to one-to-one. A migration that also consolidates thin pages, merges overlapping blog posts or renames categories takes longer, because now each URL needs a real decision rather than a direct mapping — and that decision-making is where migrations quietly slip their deadline. Budget extra time for the restructuring work specifically, separate from the platform move itself, so a slip in one does not read as a failure of the other.
How do you plan the migration before touching anything?
Start with an inventory, not a build. Pull a full list of every indexed Wix URL from Google Search Console's Pages report, not just the pages in your Wix sitemap — Search Console shows you what Google actually has, including old URLs you may have forgotten still rank.
Export every URL, its title, meta description and canonical
This becomes your migration spreadsheet: one row per URL, with columns for the old Wix address, the new WordPress address, and the redirect status once it is live.
Pull the content itself
Wix has no bulk export to WordPress, so copy page text, download images at full resolution, and note any embeds or forms that will need a WordPress equivalent.
Rebuild on a staging WordPress install, unpublished
Recreate every page and post before anything goes live, matching URL slugs to the old Wix paths wherever practical so the redirect map is simpler.
Build the full redirect map before launch
Every old URL gets a mapped destination, even ones you plan to consolidate — redirect them to the closest relevant page rather than leaving them to 404.
Launch and redirect on the same day
The gap between taking Wix down and WordPress going live with redirects active is where 404s accumulate, so plan the DNS and redirect switch to happen together.
What exactly needs to redirect, and how?
Every URL Google has ever indexed for the old domain, not just the ones currently linked in your Wix navigation. That includes blog posts you are tempted to quietly drop, old campaign landing pages, and anything with an external backlink pointing at it — check your backlink profile before you finalize the list, because a redirect saves the link equity a 404 throws away.
| Approach | Effect |
|---|---|
| 301 redirect to the matching new page | Passes ranking signals; the correct choice for almost every URL |
| 301 redirect to the homepage (catch-all) | Loses most of the page's specific relevance; use only as a last resort |
| No redirect, page returns 404 | Loses the ranking signal entirely and frustrates anyone following an old link |
| 302 (temporary) redirect | Wrong tool here — signals the move is not permanent, so search engines hold onto the old URL |
Google's own documentation is specific on this point: a permanent (301) redirect is what tells search engines to transfer a page's signals to its new address, and using anything else — or nothing at all — is what actually causes the ranking loss people blame on the platform switch [3]. Implement redirects at the server or WordPress plugin level, test a sample of them in an incognito browser before launch, and keep the full map on file in case you need to audit it later.
What happens to your content and structure on WordPress?
You rebuild it, ideally keeping the same URL slugs and heading structure so the redirect map is one-to-one rather than a puzzle. WordPress's own import tools can pull in a WXR export from another WordPress site, and WordPress.com's importer supports pulling content from some non-WordPress platforms directly, but Wix is not one of the systems either tool reads natively, so expect to move page and post content by hand or with a third-party migration plugin [1][2].
This is also the point to decide your CMS structure going forward: if your Wix blog was a flat list of posts, consider whether WordPress's categories, tags and custom post types would serve the content better — but make that decision, don't drift into it. Our Webflow CMS SEO guide covers the same structural questions from the other CMS's side, if you are still deciding between WordPress and a CMS-driven builder.
How do you confirm the migration actually worked?
Watch three things for the first month: Search Console's coverage report for a spike in 404s, your redirect map for anything that returns the wrong status code, and your organic traffic trend at the aggregate level rather than page by page, because a short dip during re-crawling is normal and a sustained drop is the signal that something in the redirect chain is broken. A handful of pages losing and regaining position in the same week is noise; the whole site trending down for three straight weeks is not.
Submit a fresh XML sitemap for the WordPress site the day it launches, and remove the old Wix sitemap reference if it is still registered anywhere. Keep the Wix hosting active for a few weeks after launch rather than cancelling it immediately — a live 301 redirect needs the old domain to still resolve, and cancelling too early turns a clean migration into a batch of broken links overnight.
Check indexing status weekly rather than daily for the first month. Google re-crawls at its own pace, and a URL that still shows the old Wix version in search results three days after launch is not necessarily broken — it may simply not have been re-crawled yet. Give it two to three weeks before treating a stale result as a real problem, and use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console to request a re-crawl only on pages that matter most, rather than every URL at once, which mostly just adds noise to the queue.
Keep a written log of what you changed and when — the date DNS switched, the date the redirect map went live, the date you resubmitted the sitemap. If organic traffic does dip in week two, that log is what lets you connect the dip to a specific step instead of guessing at what broke, and it is the same log you will want if you ever need to prove to a stakeholder that the migration was executed correctly.
If your next comparison is which platform to land on rather than which one to leave, Webflow vs WordPress for SEO and Framer as an alternative both cover what you gain and lose relative to the WordPress destination this guide assumes. And if WordPress turns out to be more than your team wants to maintain, our Squarespace SEO guide is worth reading before you commit — it is a smaller step up from Wix than a full WordPress build.
Questions people also ask
Will I lose my rankings when I move from Wix to WordPress?
Only if you skip the redirect step. Moving content is the easy part; mapping every old Wix URL to its new WordPress address with a 301 redirect is what protects the rankings those pages already earned.
Can I export my Wix content automatically?
Wix does not offer a full one-click export to WordPress. You can pull content, images and metadata manually or with a migration tool, but plan to rebuild pages rather than expect an automated transfer.
How long does a Wix-to-WordPress migration take?
For a site under thirty pages with a competent team, one to three weeks including testing. Larger sites or ones with a blog running into the hundreds of posts take longer, mostly because of the redirect mapping.
What is the single biggest mistake people make during this migration?
Changing the URL structure at the same time as the platform. Do one change at a time — migrate first with URLs as close to identical as possible, then restructure later if you need to, so a ranking drop has one obvious cause instead of two tangled ones.
Do I need to redirect every single Wix URL?
Every URL that has ever been indexed or linked to, yes. That includes old blog posts you might be tempted to drop, pages with backlinks pointing at them, and any URL still showing up in Google Search Console.
Sources
- Importing content into WordPress — WordPress.org Developer Documentation (checked 23 September 2026)
- Import content to WordPress from another site — WordPress.com Support (checked 23 September 2026)
- Redirects and Google Search — Google Search Central (checked 23 September 2026)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — Wix Help Center (checked 23 September 2026)
Plan your platform migration with someone who has done the redirect map before
Book a free 30-minute consultation with Ibrahem and Jeremy. We look at your site while we talk, and you leave with a prioritised plan.
Who wrote this
Jeremy ZavaCo-founder
Leads growth and client partnerships.
Works on: CRO, SEO
Reviewed before publishing by Ibrahem Helal, Co-founder.
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