Moving a website off Wix: what the cutover looks like, step by step

Moving a site off Wix is mostly a matter of order. You build and test the new site on a temporary address, copy the DNS records you need to keep, change the name servers at your registrar, then check that forms, email and the secure padlock all work on the real domain. A recent move for a builder whose site was on Wix took one afternoon of switching, and the one real obstacle was a leftover DNS record. This is what the steps looked like in practice.

Before anything changes: where the domain actually points

The first thing to establish is who controls what. For that builder the domain was registered at GoDaddy, but its name servers pointed at Wix, so Wix answered every DNS question about the domain. Those are two separate accounts. Changing a setting inside Wix does nothing to the registrar, and the registrar is where the name servers are changed. If you do not know where your domain is registered, our post on who actually owns your website covers how to find out.

We also checked that DNSSEC was off at the registrar before the switch. If it is on and the new name servers do not carry matching signing keys, the domain can fail to resolve for validating resolvers.

Step 1: build the new site on a temporary address

The new site went on a temporary address on our hosting platform first. That gave us a full working copy to test while the Wix site kept serving the public. Nothing about the live domain changed at this point. The new site ran on TanStack Start and Cloudflare Workers.

Testing on the temporary address included the quote form, the Google rating badge and the map. A site that only looks right is not ready. A form has to deliver, and our post on forms that say sent but send nothing explains why we test that every time.

Step 2: create the new DNS zone and copy what must be kept

We created the domain's zone on Cloudflare before touching the registrar. A zone starts out pending, and the old name servers keep serving until the switch. The pending zone had imported the existing Wix records, so the next job was to decide what to keep.

For this domain the records worth keeping were the five Google mail (MX) records, the SPF text record and two Google site verification records. The mail records matter most, because they are why the business's email arrives. There was no DKIM or DMARC record on the live domain, so there was nothing of that kind to lose.

The imported records that pointed at Wix, three A records on the main domain and a CNAME for www, had to go. This is where we hit the obstacle. Attaching the new site's custom domain failed with a conflict error until we deleted those leftover Wix records. The platform will not point a domain at two places at once. Once they were deleted, the attach succeeded and the new site was ready to answer for the domain.

Step 3: change the name servers at the registrar

At GoDaddy we replaced the two Wix name servers with the two Cloudflare ones. That is the only change the registrar needs. From that moment, the zone on Cloudflare becomes the authority for the domain.

The zone went active shortly after, and the platform issued the site's security certificate about six minutes later. Until the certificate exists, a visitor reaching the new site would see a browser warning, which is why you do not announce a move the instant the name servers change.

Step 4: expect two sites for a while

Immediately after the switch, some resolvers still answered with Wix's addresses. Our own machine and Google's public resolver were still cached to Wix, while Cloudflare's resolver already pointed at the new site. This is normal. DNS answers are cached for a period set by the old records, and nothing you do clears every cache.

You can still check the new site before the caches clear. We requested the page directly from one of Cloudflare's addresses, with the domain name attached to the request. That showed a 200 response, the right security headers, the redirect from www to the main domain, and the service and API routes all working. It proved the new site was correct without depending on any cached answer.

The practical advice is to leave the old site running for a couple of days. We learned the cost of deleting the old target early on a later move, when a client on stale DNS saw an error page. It is written up in our post on what to do when a host fails.

Step 5: test the form on the real domain

We submitted the contact form on the live domain with enquiries routed to our own inbox, and the success message appeared. Resend, the email service, had accepted the message. Only after that did we change the delivery address to the client's own inbox.

Changing that address caught us out. The hosting platform builds the site into a generated configuration, and editing the settings file and redeploying shipped the old value, which sent enquiries to the wrong inbox for three deploys until we ran a full rebuild. Settings that live outside the code, such as where enquiries go, are the first thing to check after any move.

What to keep from the Wix era

Wix ranked the site for its pages, so the new URLs need to match or redirect. That move was a full rebuild with new service and suburb pages, and our advice for that is in redesigning your website without losing your rankings. The Wix and Squarespace side of the same question is in where the platform stops.

A checklist for your own move

1. Find where the domain is registered and where its name servers point.
2. Export or screenshot every DNS record. Mark which are email, verification and the website.
3. Build and test the new site on a temporary address.
4. Copy the records you keep into the new zone, and delete the ones that pointed at the old host.
5. Turn DNSSEC off at the registrar if it is on, or plan the key change.
6. Change the name servers.
7. Wait for the certificate, then test the form, the phone links and your email on the real domain.
8. Leave the old site up for a few days.

On our base plan there is no upfront build fee, and we handle the DNS and cutover as part of putting your site live. If you would like to talk about moving off Wix, get started here or read about our web design service.