How to add a domain to your Wix site

To add a domain to your Wix site, move the site onto a paid Wix plan, open Domains in your dashboard, then buy a domain through Wix or connect one you already own by changing its settings with your registrar. This ProfileTree guide covers each step, and Wix says the change can take two days to reach everyone.

A free Wix address such as yourname.wixsite.com/yourbusiness tells customers the site is unfinished, and an address that belongs to Wix is a poor base for business email or for search visibility. This guide is written for business owners and marketing managers in the UK who want their own domain live without breaking email or losing what the site has already earned in Google. If you would prefer to hand the whole job over, our Wix and WordPress website design team sets up domains as part of every build.

What you need before you connect a domain

A connection usually fails because something was missing before the work began, so check each point below first. None of them takes long, and all of them can be done before you pay for a plan.

A paid Wix plan and what it costs in the UK

Wix does not let a site on its free plan use its own domain, so upgrading comes first. These are the UK prices Wix lists for its main plans, per month:

Annual plans are the cheaper route and come with a voucher for one free year of a new domain. That voucher covers registration only, so a domain registered elsewhere cannot use it, and from the second year the domain renews at Wix’s standard rate. Budget against the renewal price shown at checkout, since that is the cost you will pay every year after the first.

Login access to your domain registrar

A registrar is the company your domain is registered with, such as 123 Reg or Namecheap, and connecting the domain means changing settings inside that account. If a web designer or a previous agency bought the domain for you, check two things before you start: that you can log in, and that the domain is registered in your business’s name. A domain held in someone else’s name is an asset you do not control, and recovering it later is slow.

A copy of your current DNS records

DNS (the domain name system) is the internet’s address book, and it tells browsers where your website lives and tells other mail servers where to deliver your email. If you want the background, our explainer on how the domain name system works covers it in plain terms. Before you touch anything, log in to your registrar, find the DNS or zone settings, and take a screenshot of every record. The MX records (the entries that route your email) matter most, because they are what you will need to restore if email stops arriving.

How to add a domain to your Wix site step by step

The steps below follow the order of the Wix dashboard, and each one depends on the last. Keep the Wix dashboard and your registrar account open in separate tabs, because you will move between them.

Upgrade to a paid plan

From the Wix dashboard, choose Upgrade, pick the plan that suits the site, and complete the payment. The domain options stay locked until this is done.

Buy a new domain or connect one you own

Open Settings, then Domains. If you have no domain yet, you can search for one and buy it through Wix, which registers and connects it automatically. If you already own one, choose to connect it, type the domain name, and Wix will try to identify your registrar.

Two checks save time here. If the domain sits behind a DNS proxy (a service such as Cloudflare that routes traffic through its own servers), turn the proxy off, because Wix does not support it. If the domain was ever connected to a different Wix account, remove it from that account, because Wix refuses a domain that another account still holds.

Update the records at your registrar

Wix now asks you to choose between two methods, which the next section compares in detail. With the name servers method, you replace the name servers at your registrar with the two that Wix gives you, and Wix takes over your DNS. With the pointing method, your registrar keeps your DNS, and you change two records: the A record (which points the bare domain, such as yourbusiness.co.uk, to Wix’s servers) and the CNAME record (which points the www version to Wix).

Copy every value from the Wix screen and paste it in, because a single wrong character stops the domain from connecting and can take hours to spot. With pointing, delete any old A record for the bare domain while you are there, because two A records pointing to different places make the site load for some visitors and fail for others.

Wait for the change to spread and check the connection

DNS changes spread gradually across the internet, a process called propagation. Wix says it can take up to 48 hours, and during that time some visitors will see the new site while others still see the old address or an error.

Once the dashboard shows the domain as connected, test it properly. Load both yourbusiness.co.uk and www.yourbusiness.co.uk on mobile data as well as your office connection. Check that the address bar shows the padlock for HTTPS (the secure version of the site, which needs an SSL certificate). Wix notes that if only one of the two pointing records is updated, visitors may see a “Not secure” warning.

Name servers or pointing: choosing the right method

For most small businesses, name servers are the simpler choice, and pointing is the safer one when email already runs through a separate provider with a lot of custom settings. The table sets out how they differ.

Wix’s own comparison of the two methods recommends name servers and confirms that Wix automatically brings across existing MX records when you connect that way. The catch is everything else your email relies on. Providers such as Microsoft 365 use several extra records for verification and security, and if those are not recreated in Wix, email can fail quietly. If your email works today and you are not sure what records it needs, Wix itself suggests pointing, which leaves those settings untouched.

Connecting a domain compared with transferring it to Wix

Connecting a domain points it at your Wix site while the registration stays where it is. Transferring moves the registration itself to Wix, so the domain and the website are managed and billed in one account. Connecting is quicker and easier to reverse, and it is the route we suggest for most businesses that already have working email.

A transfer between registrars needs an authorisation code (a password for the domain) from your current registrar. Under ICANN’s transfer rules (ICANN is the body that oversees generic domains such as .com), the registrar must give you that code within five calendar days. It may also refuse a transfer within 60 days after the domain was first registered or last transferred. It must block one for 60 days after you change the owner’s name, organisation, or email address. So if you plan to transfer and update the contact details, transfer first.

Domains ending in .uk follow the rules of Nominet, the registry for those names, so the process differs from .com. Ask your registrar how it handles a .uk transfer before you start one.

Why a domain will not connect and how to fix it

When a connection fails, the cause is usually a setting at the registrar, and it can be fixed without starting again. Work through these checks in order.

Compare every value in the registrar account with the values on the Wix screen, character by character, and confirm the changes were saved. Extra spaces and unsaved edits are easy to miss.

Check whether DNSSEC is switched on at your registrar. DNSSEC is a security setting that signs your DNS records so they cannot be forged. If it stays on while you move the name servers to Wix, the old signatures no longer match and the domain can stop resolving altogether. Ask the registrar to turn it off before the switch.

Confirm that no DNS proxy is active and that the domain is not still attached to another Wix account. Both stop Wix from connecting it, and neither shows up as an obvious error.

If everything matches and the site still is not loading everywhere, give propagation the full 48 hours. Should it still fail after that, contact your registrar, because a lock on the domain or a registrar-side fault will only be visible from their end.

Protecting your search rankings and email during the change

A new domain affects more than the website, so plan for email and search before you switch. The checks below take little time and catch the problems customers would otherwise notice first.

For email, keep the screenshot of your old records to hand. After the switch, send a test message to the business address from a personal account and reply from the business account. With the name servers method, check that the SPF and DKIM records (the entries that prove your email is genuine and keep it out of spam folders) have been added in Wix, because these are the ones most often left behind.

For search, add the new domain to Google Search Console (Google’s free tool for checking how a site appears in search) and submit the site’s sitemap, which Wix creates for you. Then update every link you control that still uses the old address: your Google Business Profile, social media profiles, email signatures, and any directory listings.

If you are moving from one custom domain to another, the old one needs 301 redirects (permanent redirects that send visitors and search engines from each old address to the matching new one). Without them, links pointing to the old domain lead nowhere, and the rankings attached to them fade. Our guide to redirecting an old domain explains how to set this up and what it protects.

Getting help with your Wix website and domain

If you would prefer not to change DNS records yourself, or the domain is already connected and something has gone wrong, this is routine work for a web team. ProfileTree is a Belfast web design and digital marketing agency, founded in 2011 and based at the McSweeney Centre. We build Wix websites from £1,500 plus VAT and new WordPress websites from £4,000 plus VAT, and we set up the domain and its email records as part of each project.

Ciaran Connolly, founder of ProfileTree, puts it this way: “Before anyone builds or moves a website for you, ask who will actually do the work and what you will own when it is finished. For a Belfast business, the domain belongs at the top of that list, registered in your own name. Any business is welcome to put those questions to ProfileTree before we start on its website design.”

Once the domain is live, the next jobs are on the site itself, and the guide to editing your Wix site covers the changes owners make most often. If the business is outgrowing Wix, our page on moving the site to another platform sets out what a move involves and how to protect your rankings through it.

For a connection that keeps failing, or a site you want looked after properly, talk to our team about website hosting and maintenance. We can look after the domain settings and the site itself, and that work is quoted on request.

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