Moving Your Website Off SmugMug, Squarespace or Wix Without Losing Images or Rankings

Hosted platforms such as SmugMug, Squarespace and Wix make it easy to launch a website. Years later, many businesses find they are paying a growing subscription for features they barely use, with a large image library and a set of pages that feel impossible to move.

Moving is very manageable with a plan. The risks are specific (lost images, broken links, lost search rankings, a domain you do not control) and each one has a clear safeguard.

Step 1: Decide whether moving is worth it

Write down what the current platform costs per year and what you actually use: galleries, client proofing, online sales, booking, a blog. Then price the alternative, including hosting, any new platform subscription and the one-off cost of moving. Move if the numbers or the control you gain justify it. Do not move only because a new platform looks fresher.

Step 2: Make sure you control the domain

Before touching anything, confirm:

• which registrar holds the domain, and that the account is in your business’s name;
• that you can log in, and that the renewal is paid and set to renew automatically;
• where the domain’s DNS is managed, which may be the registrar, the old platform or a third party.

If the domain was bought through the platform or a past supplier, transfer it to an account you control first. Everything else depends on this.

Step 3: Take a full inventory

List every page and its URL, every gallery and how many images it holds, every form and where it sends enquiries, and anything visitors can buy or download. Note which pages bring visitors from search engines and which have links from other websites. These matter most to preserve.

Step 4: Export everything, then check it

Use the platform’s own export and download options, and keep the original, full-resolution images, not web-sized copies. Then count: the number of images and pages exported should match the inventory. Gaps found now are easy to fix. Gaps found after the old account closes may not be.

Step 5: Choose the new home

Common choices are another hosted builder, WordPress on hosting you control, or a static site on low-cost hosting. Choose on what the site has to do, who will maintain it and the full cost over several years. Image-heavy sites also need to be fast: images resized for the web, served in modern formats and loaded as they scroll into view.

Step 6: Keep URLs, and redirect the rest

Search engines rank individual URLs. Where possible, keep the same addresses on the new site. Where an address must change, set up a permanent (301) redirect from the old URL to the new one. A redirect map, a simple list of old and new addresses, is the single most important document in a migration.

Step 7: Switch over carefully

1. Build and check the new site on a temporary address.
2. Lower the DNS “time to live” a day ahead, so the change takes effect quickly.
3. Point the domain at the new site at a quiet time.
4. Test pages, images, forms and redirects straight away.
5. Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and watch for errors.

Step 8: Close the old account last

Keep the old platform running for a few weeks after the switch, until you are confident nothing is missing. Then download a final backup and cancel.

Need help?

Migrations go smoothly when they are planned, and badly when they are rushed against a renewal date. If you want help moving a website off an expensive platform, see website migration and recovery.