When you have come to the end of your current project and would like to discontinue your Wix website, you can unpublish it. When you unpublish your website, you’re able to publish the website again at any time. However, if you’ve unpublished your website for more than a couple of days, it's likely the ranking you've established on Google and other search engines will be lost.
Why Unpublish your Wix Website?
There are several reasons why you might not want to have your Wix website published any more. For instance, you could have closed down the business, wanted to move to a new platform or perhaps you’ve got two websites and would like to merge them.
The process for unpublishing your Wix website is very easy. Here are the instructions that you will need.
Step 1 – Log in
Log into your Wix website account using your credentials.
Step 2 – Settings
Now head into your ‘Settings’ page that can be found in the dashboard of the account area.
Step 3 – Website Settings
Now you need to find the option that reads ‘Website Settings’ and click on this option.
Step 4 – Unpublish
Now you will need to click on the option that reads ‘Unpublish’. A popup will appear on the screen that will request confirmation. Ensure that you click on the ‘Unpublish’ within this to ensure that the website is taken offline.
Extra Tip
Sometimes you want to unpublish a website because you would like to work on it more and not have new potential customers find your website. This can be done without unpublishing your website. To do this what you need to do is to hide your website from search engines instead. This is an easier option that allows existing users to find your website while Google will not index or list your website.
The problem with this option is that it can de-list you from search engines for far too long. When you come back and would like your website to be ranked again, you can suffer from penalties that slow your recovery within the rankings.
However, the same will be said if you’re going to unpublish your website and then republish it at another date. You might be better just having a holding screen that acts as a ‘coming soon’ or ‘maintenance’ page.
In addition, if you’re looking to unpublish a free Wix website and convert it into a premium, this is not necessary. All you need to do is to upgrade your current website account to a premium option.
Final Word: How to Unpublish Wix Site?
It is really easy to unpublish a Wix website online. It takes just a few minutes to complete. However, there are going to be huge repercussions when it comes to ranking and customers finding your brand. So only complete this step if it is something that you really want to do.