Migrating from Wix to WordPress
A practical guide to moving your website from Wix to WordPress — what transfers, what must be rebuilt, timelines, and how to protect your SEO.
Wix is popular for getting a site up quickly, but it has real limitations: you can't move your site to a different host, you can't fully own your data, and customization beyond Wix's own tools is restricted. Moving to WordPress gives you full ownership and far more flexibility.
Quick summary
Migrating from Wix to WordPress typically takes one to three weeks. Wix does not offer a direct export tool that WordPress can import, so most content must be migrated manually or through third-party tools. Design is rebuilt from scratch. Redirects must be planned carefully to protect your search rankings.
What you'll need
1–3 weeks Intermediate projectThe honest truth about Wix exports
Wix is a closed platform. Unlike Squarespace, it does not offer a WordPress-compatible XML export. This has two practical implications:
- Content must be migrated using third-party migration tools or by manually transferring pages.
- There is no automated way to transfer your Wix design — it must be rebuilt in WordPress.
This is actually fine, because Wix's design system and WordPress's design system are completely different. Even if a direct export existed, the result would not look good in WordPress. A clean rebuild gives you a better result.
Wix makes it hard to leave — on purpose
Wix does not allow you to download your website files or move your hosting to another provider. You own your content (text and images), but you can't take the site structure with you. This is a known limitation of closed platforms.
What transfers and what doesn't
What can be migrated
- Text content from all pages
- Blog posts (text and images)
- Images and media files (downloaded manually)
- Your domain name (it moves with you)
- Subscriber lists (exported as CSV)
What must be rebuilt
- All page layouts and design
- Navigation menus
- Contact and lead capture forms
- Wix App Market integrations
- Member areas and logins
- Wix Stores products and orders
- Wix Bookings settings
- Any Wix-specific functionality
Realistic timeline
| Phase | What happens | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Audit | Document every page, blog post, and feature | 1–2 days |
| Content extraction | Download images, copy text | 1–3 days |
| WordPress setup | Install, configure theme and plugins | 1 day |
| Content rebuild | Recreate pages in WordPress | 3–7 days |
| Forms and features | Rebuild contact forms, integrations | 1–2 days |
| Redirects | Map old Wix URLs to new WordPress URLs | 1 day |
| Review and QA | Test every page with you | 2–3 days |
| Cutover | Update DNS, go live | 1–4 hours |
| Post-launch | Monitor, fix issues, submit to Google | 2–3 days |
The migration process, step by step
We audit your Wix site. We list every page, blog post, product, and feature. This becomes the scope of what gets rebuilt.
We extract your content. Images are downloaded from your Wix media manager. Text is copied page by page. Blog posts may be extracted using a third-party migration tool if volume is high.
You give us access to your Wix account. We need editor-level access to export content and verify details. Invite support@chykalophia.com from your Wix dashboard, unless your project lead has given you a different address.
We build the new WordPress site on staging. You don't see a broken site go live. We build and test everything privately before touching your live domain.
We set up your redirects. Wix uses its own URL structure. We map every important Wix page URL to the corresponding new WordPress URL so no traffic or search ranking value is lost.
You review and approve the staging site. We send you a link to the work-in-progress site. You check every page and send us your notes. We make the changes before going live.
We update your domain's DNS settings. Your domain stays the same. We update the settings that tell your domain where to point, switching from Wix's servers to your new WordPress hosting.
Post-launch checks. We submit your sitemap to Google Search Console, check for broken links, and monitor rankings for the first week after launch.
Wix blog migration
If you have a Wix blog with many posts, we can use tools to extract posts in bulk. Each post is imported into WordPress with its original title, date, and text. Images need to be re-uploaded and re-linked manually, which adds time for large blogs.
If you have more than 50 blog posts, let your project lead know early so we can factor the extra time into the timeline.
What about Wix ecommerce?
Wix Stores products can be exported as a CSV file from your Wix dashboard. We can import this into WooCommerce. Customer and order data is more limited — Wix allows order export, but the data structure requires cleanup before it can be used in WordPress.
For large stores, a manual product rebuild may be cleaner than attempting a problematic import.
After the migration
Keep your Wix account active (don't cancel or let it lapse) for at least four weeks after launch. This gives you time to:
- Confirm all pages and content are correct on the new site
- Make sure any Wix-specific links or bookmarks still work via redirects
- Export anything you may have missed
After four weeks, you can cancel your Wix subscription. Your domain is separate from Wix — if it was registered through Wix, transfer it to an independent registrar (like GoDaddy or Namecheap) before cancelling.
Transfer your domain before cancelling Wix
If your domain is registered through Wix, transfer it to an independent registrar before you cancel your Wix account. Cancelling first can make domain transfer complicated. See how to transfer a domain for guidance.
Common questions
Related guides
- Pre-migration checklist
- Don't lose your SEO during a migration
- What is WordPress?
- How to transfer a domain
- Give us WordPress admin access
- What is managed WordPress hosting?
Need a hand?
Learn more
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