Wix Domain Registrar Review: A Comprehensive Review! (September 2024)
Wix Domain Registrar: founded by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan, is a versatile domain registrar & website-building tool that enables the creation of professional websites in a matter of hours, even without coding expertise. Its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface offers complete design freedom, while robust add-ons further enhance website functionality.
Since its establishment in 2006, Wix, an Israeli software company, has experienced remarkable growth, boasting a user base of over 200 million worldwide. This success is attributed to its highly customizable and potent drag-and-drop website builder, equipped with an array of comprehensive features.
Table of Contents
Wix Domain Registrar Review
While it’s tempting to stick with Wix’s free plan, you might change your mind when you can’t use your domain name and still see the Wix branding on your website. So let’s take a look at Wix’s paid plans. You’ll notice a wide buffet of paid plans segregated into non-commerce and e-commerce plans.
The higher you go, the more you get. If you simply want to eliminate the Wix brand, the least you can consider is the Combo plan at $8.50/month. However, consider the Unlimited plan at $12.50/month when you scale your business in a short time.
* Remarks: For Wix Free Plans
- Wix ads will appear on every page & favicon in the URL
- The address of your site will be the URL assigned by Wix: accountname.wixsite.com/siteaddress
Wix Business & eCommerce Plans
If you want to start an eCommerce store, the minimum plan that accepts online payments is the Business Basic plan at $17/month. Note that there is a processing fee for each payment you receive through Wix Payments. Beware, Wix’s prices are annual figures; some may find this misleading, with fine print at the bottom.
| Business Basic | Business Unlimited | Business VIP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Price/month | $17.00 | $25.00 | $35.00 |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free 1st Year Domain | Yes✔️ | Yes✔️ | Yes✔️ |
| Video Storage | 5 hours | 10 hours | Unlimited |
| eCommerce Features | Yes✔️ | Yes✔️ | Yes✔️ |
| Transaction Fees (Wix Payment) | Yes✔️ | Yes✔️ | Yes✔️ |
Wix Editor or Wix ADI?
Wix offers a pure drag-and-drop pixel-based online editor with customization options. An unstructured editor, Wix facilitates absolute freedom when it comes to moving anything to any space on the page. It took me (a newbie) a couple of moments to get familiar with Wix. Since I’m not a fussy designer, a simple working website with minimal customizations is enough for me.
However, if you need more, Wix can still give you that, but you’ll have to take some time to explore and learn how to incorporate the features if you’re not an advanced user. As you can see, Wix gives you a blank canvas with open opportunities. Therefore, experienced web designers will appreciate Wix the most for its unlimited creative design freedom.
With Wix, you have two options when it comes to building your website: Wix ADI or Wix Editor. The former stands for Wix ADI (Wix Artificial Design Intelligence) and creates a website automatically for you. You will have to provide some basic information.
While Wix ADI takes some of the control, making it easier for some, Wix Editor gives you more control when it comes to building your website from scratch based on a pre-designed template. With Wix Editor, you take the helm and manage the aesthetics, feel, navigation, features, and everything on your website.
Examples of Websites with Wix
Izzy Wheels
Rafael Varona
Animal Music
Wix Features
Wix stands out for its more than 800 templates, perfectly classified to facilitate your search. The templates are varied to suit different industries. From minimalist to complicated, Wix has the perfect mix of styles. The Wix Wizard makes it easy for beginners to get started. Just follow the instructions.
Editing and customizing the template is a pleasure; the drag-and-drop interface helps you place web elements in the right places. Then fill in your details and content, check out, and hit the “Publish” button.
To stand out, Wix continuously adds and renews features in line with the latest trends. Seeing how SEO has helped boost a website’s presence, Wix has introduced its SEO Assistant, where you build your customized SEO checklist. You then complete the checklist tasks to make your website rank better in Google.
For online sellers looking to expand their reach, Wix enables multichannel selling on major marketplaces (Amazon and eBay) and social commerce networks (Facebook and Instagram). Plus, access new global markets with Wix’s outstanding features for translating your store into different languages. Plus, take advantage of Wix’s international payment processing and cross-border shipping methods.
Look for dashboard integrations and third-party apps in the Wix App Market if you need more features. To date, more than 300 web apps are available to enhance your website.
Screenshots of the Wix Platform
What We Like About Wix
1. Massive Collection of Quality Templates
Wix has an impressive collection of over 800 templates divided into different categories to suit different uses and industries. The templates are attractive, professional, clean, modern, and mobile-friendly. While some have commented that the quality of Wix templates is not always commendable, beauty is subjective.
When perusing Wix templates, I was overwhelmed with the options and aesthetics of the templates, which were very pleasing. I had no problem finding an attractive and quality template. Since Wix templates cover most general and niche needs, getting your website up and running is a breeze.
Wix Templates
With over 800 pre-designed templates, take a look at some of the templates I found interesting:
2. Intuitive & Unstructured Visual Website Editor
Wix offers a drag-and-drop visual editor to create your website without programming skills. You manage building blocks to create your web design. You can start creating your website through Wix ADI or Wix Editor.
Wix ADI (Wix Artificial Design Intelligence) creates a website automatically for you based on the information provided. Wix Editor allows you to build your website from scratch through a drag-and-drop builder based on a template. Either way, you will end up in the Wix Editor, where you will customize the website to your liking.
Wix Editor
Wix Editor gives you full control over the feel, interface, navigation, features, and everything. Click ‘Start with a template’ to use Wix Editor.
Templates relevant to your business will appear in the Wix Templates library because Wix has narrowed them down based on your previous feedback. Hover your mouse over each template. You can choose to ‘Edit’ (design your website) or ‘View’ (preview each template before deciding).
You should test the template design to get an idea of how it works. See if it complements your business well by looking at each page and how they work. Browse through the tabs at the top or use the handy search option at the top right to filter more templates.
Customize Your Website
Edit & customize your website through the left panel:
Once everything is in order, check everything and press the blue “Publish” button. Pretty simple, isn’t it?
3. Unique Mobile Site Editor
Wix recognizes the importance of making your website responsive. Therefore, it provides mobile-responsive templates in sync with your basic design. That said, you can still customize a mobile-friendly website independently.
In addition, Wix offers a group of apps specifically for website owners and members, called Wix mobile apps. The Wix Owner app allows you to create and manage your website on the go. So, if you want to have your hands on the dough at all times, this Wix Owner app will do you justice.
Wix member apps allow members to interact with your business through a seamless experience between your website and their mobile device.
4. Powerful Add-ons via App Market
What makes Wix attractive is its ability to extend features to your website. Similar to WordPress plugins, there are many add-ons you can choose for the function you want from the Wix App Market. With over 300 web apps, you have plenty of room to expand your website and grow your business.
Proprietary (Wix Stores, Wix Blog, and others) and third-party apps are mostly free.
However, some premium apps require a premium upgrade. The good news is that most of the apps are mobile-optimized. I must commend Wix App Market for being one of the most comprehensive lists so far among website builders.
5. Diversified Marketing & SEO Capabilities
Anyone who is on the Internet will tell you about the importance of having an SEO-optimized website. After all, your website is no good no matter how pretty it is if no one can find you. Wix recognizes this fact. That’s why Wix has a section dedicated to “Marketing and SEO” to help you increase the visibility of your website.
Head there, and you’ll find recommended tools to help drive traffic to your website. You can also monitor your campaign performance, create and schedule marketing activities and much more. What I find intriguing is that Wix can create a custom SEO checklist for you. For newbies, this feature is priceless. All you have to do is complete the checklist tasks to make your website rank better on Google.
In addition, Wix offers promotional options, such as email marketing campaigns, Facebook ads, discount coupons, and free promotional videos. Create Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns directly from your Wix dashboard. There are also professional email templates to reach out with a branded message.
6. Comprehensive Support
What impressed me when I explored Wix was their comprehensive self-help knowledge base that is perfectly categorized. You’ll find answers to just about anything you can think of. The user community/forum serves as a platform to interact with other Wix users, especially for more complicated questions.
Onboarding is easy, and plenty of tips and pointers will guide you as you begin your website-building journey with Wix. The Wix Editor has question marks on each design element for clarification. You also have the option to contact Wix via phone, live chat, and social channels if all else fails.
7. Wix Sites Are Fast & Secure
Speed is crucial in determining the success of your business website. The free plan with Wix gives you free web hosting that includes 500 MB of cloud storage and 500 MB of bandwidth. If you need more, you have to go with a premium plan. Wix uses multi-cloud web hosting through Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Hosting with Wix’s private data centers and a network of Fastly CDNs.
Wix also has disaster recovery servers to ensure minimal downtime in case these networks go down. Wix hosts your website on servers around the world with 99.9% uptime and data backup protection. You get 24/7 security monitoring, HTTPS, and SSL/TLS protection with DDoS protection. I’d say Wix has you covered.
8. Expand Your Business Beyond Borders
Wix makes it easy for you to go international. Translating your store into the respective languages, providing global payment processing and cross-border shipping methods are some of the essential elements offered by Wix. The multilingual application is available in more than 180 languages. Wix’s local currency converter allows you to view prices in local currency.
Wix allows international payments through its native Wix Payments or more than 80 Wix-supported payment gateways worldwide. Based on pre-configured tax rules, Avalara calculates the corresponding sales taxes for your Wix e-commerce website, or you manually calculate sales tax rates. In addition, configure your shipping rates (consider cross-border rates, regional rates, and local taxes), shipping rules, and other shipping options. Wix can make you global.
9. Reach More via Multichannel Selling
Wix allows you to expand your reach through leading marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and social commerce networks. Through control panel integrations and third-party apps in the Wix App Market, you can sell on Amazon and eBay to reach a much wider audience. Plus, create an integrated social storefront on Facebook in minutes through the Wix control panel.
What We Dislike About Wix
1. Restricted Free Plan
While Wix’s free plan is suitable for bloggers and testing, it can be restrictive and overwhelming in some ways. While I can understand the Wix branding on all free Wix websites, it can be annoying, especially when you’re starting a small business. Plus, you have up to 500 MB of storage and bandwidth, and Wix ads appear on EVERY page.
The issue is that Wix ads and their domain branding don’t give a professional feel if you’re serious about your business.
2. Switching Templates is Difficult
Once you decide on a Wix template and do most of the work and customization, it is a challenge to change the template later; they are not compatible. Therefore, your content will not transfer easily. You will most likely have to redo everything with a different template.
3. Cannot Export Your Wix Website
One of the criteria when choosing a web host is the ease of migration. After all, changing web hosting providers often happens for different reasons. However, Wix does not allow you to export your website or any of its pages.
Also, you can’t embed any elements on your Wix website, elsewhere. Wix justifies this by improving your website’s load time, SEO, and more. However, I’m not convinced.
FAQs
What happens if I forget to renew my domain on time with Wix?
If you miss the domain renewal deadline, Wix typically offers a grace period during which you can still renew your domain without penalties. However, once the grace period expires, your domain might enter a redemption period, during which there are additional costs to recover it.
Can I explore unique domain extensions, such as .pizza or .photography, through Wix’s domain registrar?
Yes, Wix provides a selection of both popular and unique domain extensions, allowing you to get creative with your domain name. These extensions include industry-specific options like .tech, .store, and many more.
Can I establish custom email addresses using my domain registered with Wix, and how do I set them up?
Yes, you can create professional email addresses using your Wix-registered domain. Wix provides email services, allowing you to set up custom email addresses (e.g., info@yourdomain.com). You can manage these addresses through the Wix dashboard or integrate them with third-party email providers.
What if I need to configure advanced DNS settings for my Wix-registered domain?
Wix offers advanced DNS management tools within the dashboard. You can add custom DNS records, set up email routing, link to external services, and more. This flexibility ensures you can tailor your domain’s DNS configuration to your specific needs.
If I decide to move my domain away from Wix in the future, can I do so, and what steps are involved?
Yes, you can transfer your domain from Wix to another registrar if needed. The process typically involves unlocking your domain, requesting an authorization code from Wix, initiating the transfer with the new registrar, and confirming the transfer through email. Be sure to follow the specific instructions of both registrars for a successful transfer.
Alex Colt is a tech blogger who is deeply passionate about technology. He writes on an array of subjects ranging from the latest smartphones and laptops to the newest gadgets and consumer electronics. Alex’s blog simplifies complex technological concepts into easy-to-understand language, providing insights into the tech world. Furthermore, he shares useful tips and tricks for maximizing the use of devices and staying abreast of the most recent trends. Alex’s unwavering commitment to educating his readers about the ever-evolving realm of tech has made him a respected and trustworthy figure in the tech community.
To read more similar articles, click here
Thanks for visiting our Website. If you appreciate our work, kindly show us some support in our comments section. 🙂
