Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and Exponential #

Hosted site builders keep a site on their own platform. What you can take with you is limited, and differs a lot between them; plan for reading part of the content off the live site.

Migration hub · Checklist · Static HTML sites (the crawl method) · Tools

Contents #

• 1. What each builder can export
• 2. The crawl method for what cannot be exported
• 3. Mapping and import
• 4. Addresses and redirects
• 5. From Exponential to a site builder
• 6. Checklist
• Sources

1. What each builder can export #

Wix #

According to Wix's help center:

• No site export. A Wix site "needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers" because of its proprietary technology.
• Blog: "Currently, it is not possible to export blog posts to other platforms" (a feature request on Wix's side).
• CMS collections: More Actions > Export to CSV (all fields, the filtered items, or the structure only; UTF-8; times in UTC+0).
• REST APIs exist for some data, for example querying blog posts (POST https://www.wixapis.com/v3/posts/query, cursorPaging up to 100, fieldsets such as RICH_CONTENT, URL, SEO). The body comes as Wix's rich content node structure, not as HTML, and needs a converter of your own.
• Store products can be exported (Wix has an article on it; not opened for this page).

Squarespace #

According to Squarespace's help center, Settings > Import/Export exports to a WordPress XML file with the layout pages, one blog page with its posts (up to 1000 comments per post), and text, image and gallery content. Not exported: albums, covers, indexes, calendars, portfolios, store pages; page-specific headers, footers and sidebars; further blog pages; dropdowns; audio, video and product blocks; drafts; style settings and custom CSS. Products have a separate CSV export (up to 10,000; without additional info, reviews, featured images, alt text or variant images).

The WordPress XML is WXR: convert it as in the WordPress guide.

GoDaddy Website Builder (Websites + Marketing) #

No official site or content export was found in GoDaddy's help center. Its built-in backup "only backs up your site's sections, text and settings" and does not include blogs, products, appointments or images; the article describes restoring a backup, not downloading one. Online-store products have a CSV export (help article exists; not opened). An API and a redirect import were not verified. Plan to read the site off the live pages (2).

2. The crawl method for what cannot be exported #

1. List every address: the builder's sitemap (/sitemap.xml on most of them), plus a crawl, plus the analytics top pages.
2. Fetch each page with a crawler you control, politely (rate-limited), and save the HTML.
3. Extract the content area per page type with CSS selectors: title, body, images, dates, author. Builders wrap content in generated markup; write one extractor per page template and test it on a sample.
4. Download the images in their largest size, with their alternative text.
5. Write JSON rows with the old address as remote id (page-<hash of address>), then import as for any source (tools).

Check the builder's terms of service before crawling your own site in bulk, and do it while you still have the account.

3. Mapping and import #

The design is never exported: plan the templates of the new site from the start.

4. Addresses and redirects #

• Build the redirect table from the address list of 2.
• In Exponential: redirecting custom URL aliases, wildcards for regular patterns, the web server for query strings (checklist, 4).
• Keep the builder site online until DNS has switched; afterwards only your redirects carry the old links.

5. From Exponential to a site builder #

Export with xrowextract (leaving Exponential) and keep the storage files for the images.

6. Checklist #

• To do: What the builder can export is exported (CSV, WordPress XML); everything else is on the crawl list.
• To do: Address list complete (sitemap, crawl, analytics).
• To do: Extractors written per page template and tested; images downloaded in full size with alt text.
• To do: Imported with remote ids; templates built; redirects tested.
• To do: Builder account kept until after the cut-over.

Sources #

• Wix, exporting a site: https://support.wix.com/en/article/exporting-or-embedding-your-wix-site-elsewhere
• Wix, exporting blog posts: https://support.wix.com/en/article/wix-blog-request-exporting-blog-posts-to-other-platforms
• Wix, query posts API: https://dev.wix.com/docs/rest/business-solutions/blog/posts-stats/query-posts
• Squarespace, exporting your site: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206566687-Exporting-your-site
• Squarespace, URL mappings: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205815308-URL-mappings
• Squarespace, export products: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000694948-Export-products-to-a-csv
• GoDaddy, back up my website: https://www.godaddy.com/help/back-up-my-website-32228

This page is part of the Exponential documentation and is free documentation under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or any later version (the license of this documentation).