Is Wix good for SEO?

On This Page

1. Where the bad reputation came from
2. Myth or fact
3. Speed: where Wix is ahead
4. What Wix already does for you
5. The real limits, in Wix’s words
6. Will Wix hold your site back?
7. Is your Wix site set up for Google?
8. What actually decides whether you rank
9. My view
10. Questions I get asked

Yes, for most small businesses. I compete with Wix for a living, so I'd have every reason to tell you otherwise, but the evidence doesn't support "Wix is bad for SEO" any more. Google's own staff have said it's fine. Real Australian visitors find Wix sites faster, on average, than WordPress or Squarespace sites. And the study most "Wix is bad" articles lean on was withdrawn by the company that ran it.

Wix does have limits, and I'll go through each one in Wix's own words. Most of them only bite at the edges: big blogs, multilingual sites, or the day you decide to leave. If your Wix site isn't showing up on Google, the platform is rarely the reason. This guide shows you how to check.

I checked everything here on 11 October 2026: Wix's help pages, Google's documentation, and the HTTP Archive's Chrome data for Australia.

Where the bad reputation came from

It was earned, once. Wix launched in 2008 on Flash, and its early sites used "#!" in their web addresses, a set-up that relied on a Google crawling scheme Google later dropped. Wix's engineering blog says it moved every site to normal addresses by the end of August 2016. So the complaints you still read about messy addresses and content hidden from Google describe a Wix that no longer exists.

Google's John Mueller said as much on Reddit in December 2021, answering someone whose neighbour was being told to move his business off Wix. As reported by Search Engine Journal and Ahrefs:

"Wix is fine for SEO. A few years back it was pretty bad in terms of SEO, but they've made fantastic progress." And: "If Wix works for them, and they don't need more, there's no reason to switch."

He went further and warned a small business against moving to a self-hosted site because of the upkeep. Back in 2017 he'd said "WIX websites work fine in search." These are comments from a Google employee, not Google policy, and they're a few years old. But nothing Google has published since says anything different. Google's documentation only mentions Wix as an example, as in "If you're using a CMS such as WordPress, Wix, or Blogger", your sitemap is probably already there.

The study that started "Wix sites get no traffic"

In 2019 Ahrefs, an SEO tool company, published a study of 6.4 million sites. It said 46.1% of WordPress sites got some search traffic, against 1.4% of Wix sites. That number is still quoted everywhere.

Ahrefs has since replaced the article. Its editor's note now says "The study and its methodology weren't great", and that they couldn't see a way to rerun it properly. Even at the time, Ahrefs put the gap down to "the website owners, not the platforms themselves". Think about who was in the sample: millions of hobby sites, test sites and placeholders built on Wix's free plan, set against WordPress sites where someone had at least paid for hosting.

A smaller 2022 study by Onely, an SEO agency, looked at how many pages Google actually indexed. Wix and WordPress came out about equal, 84% and 83%. I haven't found any current independent study showing Wix sites rank worse because of the platform.

Myth or fact

Tap a card to see what the evidence says.

Speed: where Wix is ahead

Google's Chrome browser records how fast real visitors find each site, and the HTTP Archive publishes that by platform. This is the share of sites passing all three of Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile.

Most of the gap is in how quickly the main content appears. For Australian mobile visitors, 87.9% of Wix sites load it in good time, against 71.8% of Squarespace sites and 59.7% of WordPress sites. On responsiveness and layout shift, all three are close.

Two fair caveats. These are averages: WordPress includes every cheap host and heavy theme out there, and a well-built WordPress site can beat a careless Wix one. And speed is a small part of ranking. Google says good Core Web Vitals don't guarantee you'll rank at the top, and Mueller himself said speed "is only a tiny part of SEO".

What Wix already does for you

This is the part most "Wix SEO" articles skip, so here's the full list, with where to find each setting. Most of it lives in your dashboard under SEO & GEO, then Tools and settings. Older help articles call that menu "Marketing & SEO".

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

One useful line from Wix's help: SEO tools from other companies "can sometimes struggle to fully read a Wix page's source code", and may flag titles or headings as missing when they're there. If someone has emailed you a scary SEO audit of your Wix site, check it against Google Search Console before you believe it.

The real limits, in Wix's words

These come straight from Wix's help centre. The last column is my read on whether each one matters to a local business.

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

If you're weighing up a move, the blog export is the one I'd think hardest about. A site with two hundred posts on Wix is a site with two hundred posts to copy across, plus a redirect for each one. My guide to leaving Wix covers how to do it without losing your rankings.

Will Wix hold your site back?

Five questions. If you answer no to all of them, the platform isn't your problem.

Is your Wix site set up for Google?

Go through this in your Wix dashboard. Your ticks save in this browser, so you can come back to it.

About the AI crawler advice: Wix's help page on blocking AI suggests a robots.txt list that blocks ChatGPT-User, which is what ChatGPT uses to read your page when someone asks it about you. If you want to be found in AI answers, I wouldn't copy it. My guide to AI search for local businesses explains what each bot does.

What actually decides whether you rank

For a local business, the things that move rankings are the same on Wix, WordPress or anything else, and most of them sit outside the website:

• Your Google Business Profile. Google says local results rest on relevance, distance and prominence, and "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." A verified, complete profile is the starting point.
• Reviews, asked for from every customer the same way, with nothing offered in return.
• A page for each service you offer, written for the people who need it, with its own title. Not dozens of copies with the suburb swapped.
• Links and mentions from other sites in your area and your industry.

Mueller made the same point in 2021: "The more small business sites I see, the fewer I see with technical SEO issues, and the more the issues lie with the content". I go through all of this in my guide to local SEO for small businesses, and whether it's worth paying for in is SEO worth it.

My view

If you're on Wix and happy with it, stay. Do the checklist above, then put your effort into your Business Profile, your reviews and your service pages. Moving platforms won't fix a ranking problem that comes from thin pages or a neglected profile, and a move done badly can cost you the rankings you have.

The reasons I'd give for leaving Wix aren't really about SEO. You can't take the site or the blog with you, and you're building it yourself, or paying someone to. If those bother you, compare it properly in Wix or WordPress and what Wix really costs in Australia.

Questions I get asked

Is Wix good for SEO?

Yes, for most small businesses. Wix renders pages on its servers, writes your sitemap, and lets you edit titles, descriptions, redirects and structured data. Google's John Mueller called it "fine for SEO" in 2021.

Is Wix bad for SEO?

Not any more. Its bad name comes from before 2016, when Wix sites used "#!" addresses. The 2019 Ahrefs study often quoted against Wix was withdrawn by Ahrefs.

Is Wix or WordPress better for SEO?

Neither ranks better because of the platform. Wix sites were faster on average for Australian mobile visitors in August 2026. WordPress gives you more control and lets you take the site with you.

Is Wix or Squarespace better for SEO?

Both cover the basics. Wix sites passed Core Web Vitals more often for Australian mobile visitors (85.9% against 64.7% in August 2026), and Wix has more SEO settings built in.

Does a Wix site rank on the free plan?

Google can crawl and index it, but the free plan can't use your own domain, set 301 redirects or connect Search Console through Wix's checklist. For a business, use a paid plan.

Why isn't my Wix site showing up on Google?

Check that indexing is switched on in SEO Settings, connect Google Search Console, and look at its page indexing report. That report shows which pages Google has found and why any were left out. A local business also needs a verified Google Business Profile.