How to Transfer Your Website From One Platform to Another

Moving a website from one platform to another is one of the most common — and most stressful — tasks in web management. Whether you're going from Wix to WordPress, Squarespace to Shopify, or a custom site to a hosted platform, the process involves far more than just copying files. Here's how to approach it without losing everything.

Why Website Transfers Are Complicated

Every platform stores content differently. Wix uses a proprietary format that doesn't map to standard HTML. Squarespace uses its own templating system. WordPress stores content in a MySQL database in a structure that differs from every other CMS. None of these formats are directly compatible with each other.

This means there's no single button that moves a website from Platform A to Platform B. Every migration involves some combination of exporting content, reformatting it, and rebuilding the design on the new platform.

Step 1: Get a Complete Copy of Your Current Site

Before you touch anything, create a complete offline backup of your current site. This is your safety net and your reference document throughout the migration.

The best way to do this is with a site scraper that captures the fully rendered version of every page — exactly what a visitor sees, including images, layout, and styles. This becomes your visual reference when rebuilding on the new platform.

Website Sucker crawls any live website and downloads it as a complete offline ZIP. You can open it in a browser without internet and use it as a pixel-by-pixel reference during rebuilding.

Step 2: Identify What Needs to Transfer

Not everything on your site is equal in terms of migration effort. Make a list of what matters most:

Core pages — homepage, about, contact, services, etc.
Blog posts — if you have many, these are usually the most time-consuming
Product catalog — descriptions, images, prices, variants
Images and media — every photo, video, and document
Forms and integrations — contact forms, booking systems, email signup
SEO data — page titles, meta descriptions, URL slugs

Step 3: Choose the Right Migration Method for Your Content

Different content types migrate differently:

For blog posts: Most platforms can import/export posts as XML or CSV. WordPress's native XML format is supported by many other CMS platforms. If yours isn't, tools like CMS2CMS or manual copy-paste may be needed.

For page content: Pages usually require manual recreation on the new platform. Your offline backup is invaluable here — open each page alongside the new editor and rebuild it section by section.

For images: Download all images from your current site first (your site backup includes them all). Upload to the new platform's media library, then reference them in your rebuilt pages.

If the images are all you need from the old site, Image Sucker pulls every one into a single ZIP, ready to upload to the new media library.

For ecommerce products: Most platforms export product catalogs to CSV. Check your current platform's export options under Settings → Store or similar.

Step 4: Set Up URL Redirects

This step is critical for SEO and is the one most people forget. If your old site had URLs like /blog/my-post and your new site uses /posts/my-post, anyone with an old link — or Google's index of your site — will hit a 404 error.

Before launching the new site, map every old URL to its equivalent new URL and set up 301 redirects. Your old host should allow you to set these up even after you've pointed your domain elsewhere.

Step 5: Migrate Your Domain

Don't move your domain until the new site is fully tested. Use the new platform's staging environment or a temporary URL to check everything first. When you're satisfied, update your domain's DNS settings to point to the new host. DNS changes propagate within a few hours to 48 hours.

Common Platform-to-Platform Migrations

Wix to WordPress: No native export exists. Download your site with a scraper, export blog posts from Wix dashboard, rebuild pages manually using your backup as a visual reference.

Squarespace to WordPress: Squarespace's XML export works reasonably well for blog content. Pages need manual rebuilding. Images must be downloaded and re-uploaded.

Any platform to a static site: Download your site as a static ZIP and host it directly on Netlify, GitHub Pages, or Vercel. No CMS required — just upload the files.

Enable JavaScript to use Website Sucker.