Move your existing website to Fwdia
Bring your current website (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or another) to Fwdia: start from it with the AI assistant, add redirects, then connect your domain.
Already have a website somewhere else, for example on WordPress, Wix or Squarespace? You can move it to Fwdia in an afternoon, keep your domain and keep the links people and Google know. You need Pro or Business: the AI assistant and your own domain are part of those plans.
The order matters: build the new site first, while your old site stays online, and only switch your domain at the end.
1. Start from your current website
Choose New website, then With the assistant and Start from an existing website. Paste the address of your current site and choose copy its texts and images (only for a website that is yours). The assistant builds a first version on Fwdia with your texts and photos, in your colours. See The AI assistant.
The assistant reads the one page you paste, not the whole site. For your other pages: add a page under Pages in the builder, open it, choose Assist and type for example "copy www.example.com/services, it is my own site". Each page you take over counts as 5 assistant messages. You can also build pages yourself with blocks.
2. Check and complete your pages
- Go through every page in the builder, on phone and desktop. Fix texts, swap photos, add what is missing.
- Rebuild your contact form with the Form block: messages land in Messages.
- Took bookings elsewhere? Set them up under Bookings (see Getting started with bookings).
- Had a blog? Add your posts under Blog (see Blog posts).
- Give your pages the same addresses as before where you can (for example
/contact), and check the tips in the SEO tab (see Google and sharing).
3. Redirect your old addresses
Pages on your old site may have had other addresses, like /index.php/contact-us or /2023/05/summer-news. People saved them and Google knows them. Under Settings > Redirects, add each old address and the page on Fwdia it should open. Visitors and Google are sent on permanently (a 301 redirect), so you keep your place in search results.
Don't want to type them all? Under Moving from another website? on the same tab, enter the address of your old website and choose Read its addresses. Fwdia reads the old site's page list (its sitemap, or else the links on its home page) and fills in Add many at once with every old address and a suggested page here (a page with a similar name, or else your home page). Check and change the lines, then save. Nothing is saved before you do. Do this before you move your domain, while the old website is still online.
/sitemap.xml, or check the pages Google shows for site:yourdomain.com.4. Publish and connect your domain
- Publish your new site and look at it on its fwdia.com address.
- Under Settings > Your domain, connect your domain (for example
www.yourname.com). Pro includes 1 own domain, Business 3. - At your domain provider, change the one record Fwdia shows. Your old site keeps showing until that change is live, usually within an hour.
Every step is explained in Use your own domain.
What about my email?
Your email (you@yourname.com) keeps working: it uses other DNS records (MX records) than your website. Only change the record Fwdia shows for the website, and leave your email records as they are.
After the move
- Check a few old addresses and your redirects on your own domain.
- Keep your old site or hosting for a few weeks, until everything works as it should. Then cancel it.
- Printed QR codes from your old provider keep pointing to wherever that provider sends them. Fwdia's own QR code always opens your site (see What a scan does).