How to Change a URL on Wix

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Task time:
1 day
Difficulty:
Easy

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

– Albert Einstein

Seasons change, people change, and – sometimes – your website’s URL will need to as well. This can sometimes be easy, but often it’s awkward and time-consuming – and occasionally, it can be downright difficult.

Luckily, if you have a Wix site (and since you’re here, we’re guessing you do!), changing your URL is a deceptively simple process.

However you’re planning to do it – whether through the Wix Editor, Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), or by altering your whole site’s URL – we’ll walk you through the process, below.

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Next step

Changing Your URLs on Wix Editor

Toggling your site’s URL in the Wix Editor is a simple process:

  1. Click the ‘Site Pages’ icon on the left side of the Editor
  2. Select ‘Site Menu’ and choose the page you want to edit the URL of
  3. Click the ‘Show More’ icon (the circle with three horizontal dots)

change url on wix seo settings

  1. Choose ‘SEO Basics’ from the drop-down list that appears
  2. Enter your page’s chosen URL under the ‘What’s the URL slug (last part of the URL) for this page?’ section

change url on wix url slug settingsEasy…right?

Yep. But that doesn’t mean changing the URLs of your Wix site’s pages is always a wise thing to do.

You’ve got SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to consider, after all – and what kind of consequences tinkering with your pages’ URLs will have on your Wix site’s Google rankings.

When you change the URL of one of the page’s on your Wix site, search engines will consider that URL a completely new page. Not only will the old URL cease to exist, but any links into it won’t work – meaning all the search engine goodwill that that page has built up over the years will be lost.

Fortunately, there’s a fix. You can set up a 301 redirect from your page’s old URL to its new one – meaning any inbound links will survive, as will the old URL’s SEO credit.

The only catch? To do this, you’ll need to upgrade to one of Wix’s premium plans, first – then connect a domain name to your site.

Advice from the Experts

Top Tip!

If you use words that relate to a page’s content in its URL, that page is more likely to rank for relevant search terms than another, more arbitrary name.

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Next step

Changing Your URLs On Wix ADI

If you used Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) to build your site, fret not – the process of changing your site’s URL isn’t half as complex as the technology that went into creating it!

To change the URLs for individual pages on your site, simply:

  1. Navigate to the ‘Page Menu’
  2. Click the ‘Settings’ icon – it’s a small cog – followed by ‘Page SEO’
  3. Under ‘Page URL’, delete your current URL and replace it with the new one

See the screenshot below – taken from Wix’s own website – for reference.

how to change url wix adi
As is the case when you change your URLs with the Wix Editor, any page URLs you change with Wix ADI will need to be redirected. To avoid losing your old URL’s SEO profile and to keep its backlinks functional, make sure to implement a 301 redirect from the old page.

You’ll need to add a domain and upgrade to one of Wix’s paid plans to do this.

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Changing Your URLs by Changing Domain Name

The options we’ve recommended so far are ideal if you’re only looking to alter the URLs of the individual pages on your site. What happens if you want to go deeper, and change the URL of your entire Wix site at large?

No problem. To change your Wix site’s URL to a different domain name, first navigate to the Domains page and pick your site’s new moniker.

Once you’ve taken your pick, you’ll then need to upgrade to one of Wix’s paid plans. Only then will you be able to assign a domain name to your site.

With your new domain name waiting in the wings, follow these steps to make the change official:

  1. From your Wix account’s homepage, select ‘Connect Your Own Domain’
  1. how to change wix url connect domain nameBuy a new domain name, connect one you already own, or transfer an existing one to Wix
  1. how to change wix url domain settingsHead to the Domains page of your Wix account to assign your new domain to your site

how to change wix url assign new domain

Hey, presto! You’re all done. If you want to assign to your Wix site a domain that’s already registered to another site – or add a domain that’s not currently attached to a site at all – there are slightly different ways of doing this. Wix’s guide to replacing your site URL with an alternative domain name should help with this.

Also, bear in mind that, at the time of writing, Wix is currently updating the layout and structure of its Domains page (which you’ll need to head to before changing your Wix site’s URL). So if any of these instructions don’t make sense to you, that’ll be why!

If this happens, let us know in the comments, and we’ll update the instructions here accordingly.

Advice from the Experts

Top Tip!

Remember, page (and website!) URLs are case-sensitive. If you accidentally enter a capital letter into your site’s URL – for example ‘mywebsite.com/About-me’ – that URL won’t work if you type in ‘mywebsite.com/about-me’. So be careful when creating your new URL!

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URL Paths You Can’t Use on Wix

There are some URL paths Wix won’t allow you to use. There’s nothing sinister going on here – it’s simply because these paths are already reserved either for SEO purposes, or for Wix apps.

Fortunately, there aren’t many of them – and, quite frankly, it’s unlikely you’d want any of them anyway.

The URL paths you can’t use on Wix include:

  • apps
  • _api
  • robots.txt
  • sitemap.xml
  • feed.xml
  • sites
  • events (if you’re using the Wix Events app)

Try to use any of these URLs for your pages, and Wix will politely request you pick an alternative.

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Next step

How 301 Redirects Work on Wix

If you’ve upgraded to one of Wix’s premium (read: paid) packages, you’ll be able to add 301 redirects to your site. These allow you to channel traffic from an old URL (one that no longer exists) to a new one (its replacement).

Let’s say, for instance, that you want to rename the URL of your blog – currently ‘mywebsite.com/blog’ to something more snazzy. Something like ‘My Thoughts’. As we’ve seen so far, you’d be able to change the URL quite easily to ‘mywebsite.com/my-thoughts’.

The problem is, the URL of your old blog has been around for a while. People have been reading it, it ranks quite well, and there are even a couple of sites linking back to the content on it. If you change your blog’s URL – and don’t do anything to redirect it – you’ll lose all that old page’s SEO standing. Anyone visiting that site will get a 404 message, and that’ll be the end of their attempts to read your content.

Here’s where 301s come in. Putting them in place means that anyone who finds your page through the old URL can still access it on the new URL – and that all those backlinks will remain intact. Thankfully, 301s mean that search engines will retain page data – such as page visits – which allows your Wix site’s page to hold onto its strong SEO credentials.

Ready to set up a 301 redirect on your Wix site? Here’s how:

  1. Navigate to ‘SEO Tools’ in your site’s dashboard (it’s in the sidebar, under ‘Marketing & SEO’)
  2. Click ‘URL Redirect Manager’
  1. how to change wix url redirect managerSelect ‘Create New Redirect’
  1. change url on wix create new redirectClick ‘Single Redirect’, or – if you want to update several pages that share the same path – you can use Wix’s group redirect feature
  2. Under ‘Old URL’, enter the URL you want to redirect from 
  3. Under ‘New URL’, enter the URL you want to redirect to 
  4. Add more, or select ‘Save & Close’ to finish up

It’s as easy as that!

How to Change a URL On Wix: Summary

Ideally, you shouldn’t need to change the URL of your Wix website’s pages – or that of the site itself – too often.

But when you do need to change your Wix site’s URL, it’s refreshing to know how simple it is. You’ll just have to be on a paid plan to do it in a way that doesn’t play havoc with your site’s SEO!

Of course, there are several excellent reasons why you should be on one of Wix’s premium plans, the pricing of which you can find out in our Wix pricing guide. It’s our highest-rated website builder, after all – and if you’re new to Wix, you can find out why we love it so much by heading to our Wix review.

If you’re well-versed as to what Wix is – but would like some more info around the extent of its capabilities – you’ll also enjoy our guide to how to use Wix. Or, to find out about other products Wix offers, read our comparison of the Wix regular website builder and Wix Editor X.

Thanks for reading!

FAQS

Navigate to the ‘Site Pages’ icon, select ‘Site Menu’, and pick the page you want to edit the URL of. Click the ‘Show More’ icon, then ‘SEO Basics’ from the drop-down list. Finally, pick the new URL you want – and you’re done!
Head to the ‘Page Menu’, then hit the ‘Settings’ icon, followed by ‘Page SEO’. In the ‘Page URL’ field, delete the old URL and enter the new one instead.
Select ‘Connect Your Own Domain’ from your Wix homepage. Then, either buy a new domain – or transfer an existing one, if you have it – and connect it to your site via the Domains page of your Wix account.

Written by:
I’ve written for brands and businesses all over the world – empowering everyone from solopreneurs and micro-businesses to enterprises to some of the ecommerce industry’s best-known brands: including Yahoo!, Ecwid, and Entrepreneur. My commitment for the future is to empower my audience to make better, more effective decisions: whether that’s helping you pick the right platform to build your website with, the best hosting provider for your needs, or offering recommendations as to what – and how – to sell.

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