Technical SEO preservation: schema markup, canonical tags and structured data during redesign

Technical SEO elements, schema markup, canonical tags, meta robots directives, hreflang tags, Open Graph tags, and custom code, are the most commonly lost assets during a Wix redesign. These elements are often invisible on the page surface, so designers and developers do not notice when they disappear. But their loss can be catastrophic: losing FAQ schema means losing rich results, losing canonical tags means introducing duplicate content, and losing custom tracking code means losing analytics data. This lesson covers how to preserve every technical SEO element during your Wix redesign.

Creating Your Technical SEO Inventory

Before making any changes, you need a complete inventory of every technical SEO element on your Wix site. This inventory becomes your checklist for verification after the redesign launches.

Building your technical SEO inventory

• Use Screaming Frog to crawl your site and export structured data found on each page
• For each page with schema markup, copy the full JSON-LD code and save it in your audit folder
• Document canonical tags for every page (Screaming Frog exports these automatically)
• Note any pages with noindex or nofollow meta robots directives
• List all Custom Code entries from Wix Dashboard > Settings > Custom Code (head, body start, body end, and page-specific code)
• Document Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags for key pages
• If using Wix Multilingual, note all hreflang tag implementations
• List all third-party tracking scripts: Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, etc.

Preserving Schema Markup During Redesign

Schema markup on Wix can come from two sources: automatically generated by Wix (for Wix Stores products, Wix Blog posts, and Wix Bookings) and manually added via Custom Code. Both must be preserved.

• Wix auto-generated schema: this regenerates automatically as long as you keep the same Wix features active (Stores, Blog, Bookings). Verify after redesign that these features are still installed and configured.
• Custom JSON-LD schema: any schema added via Custom Code must be manually transferred to the redesigned site. Use your saved copies from the technical inventory.
• Page-specific schema: if you added schema to individual pages via page-level Custom Code, you must re-add it to each new page after the redesign.
• Verify all schema after redesign using Google Rich Results Test on every page that previously had markup.

Canonical Tag Verification

Canonical tags tell Google which version of a page is the preferred one. During a redesign, canonical tags can be accidentally misconfigured, especially when URLs change. Every page must have a correct self-referencing canonical tag pointing to its own URL, or a deliberate canonical pointing to a preferred alternative.

Verifying canonical tags after redesign

• Crawl the redesigned site with Screaming Frog before launch (use the staging URL or preview URL if available)
• Check that every page has a canonical tag
• Verify self-referencing canonicals point to the correct new URL (not the old URL)
• For pages with custom canonicals, verify they point to the correct destination
• Check that no canonical tags accidentally point to the old site URL or a staging URL
• After launch, re-crawl and verify canonicals on the live site

Preserving Custom Code and Tracking

Wix Custom Code is where many technical SEO implementations live: tracking scripts, schema markup, consent management, A/B testing code, and more. A redesign can silently remove this code.

• Export all Custom Code entries from Wix Dashboard before the redesign
• Categorise each code entry: which are site-wide (head), which are page-specific, and which are feature-specific
• After the redesign, re-add all site-wide code entries in the same locations
• For page-specific code, add it to the corresponding new pages
• Test that all tracking fires correctly: check GA4 real-time reports, verify Tag Manager container is loading, and confirm any conversion tracking is working
• Verify consent management (cookie banner) is functioning correctly after redesign

Core Web Vitals After Template Changes

Switching templates or significantly changing your Wix site layout can dramatically affect Core Web Vitals. A template that looks beautiful may have poor performance characteristics that hurt your SEO.

Testing and optimising CWV after redesign

• Run PageSpeed Insights on your top 10 pages immediately after the redesign launches
• Compare scores against your pre-redesign baseline from the audit
• If LCP has increased, check for oversized hero images, unoptimised fonts, or render-blocking resources in the new template
• If CLS has increased, check for elements that shift during page load, particularly images without explicit dimensions and ads or embeds
• If INP has degraded, check for heavy JavaScript in the new template or excessive third-party scripts
• Optimise any degraded metrics before search engines fully re-crawl and re-evaluate your site

Complete How-To Guide: Technical SEO Preservation During Your Wix Redesign

Follow these steps to preserve all technical SEO elements during your redesign

• Open your technical SEO inventory from the pre-redesign audit
• Create a verification checklist with every schema type, custom code entry, and technical element that must be preserved
• After building the redesigned pages, re-add all custom JSON-LD schema to the appropriate pages via Custom Code
• Re-add all site-wide tracking scripts (GA4, GTM, Facebook Pixel) via Custom Code in the head section
• Verify Wix auto-generated schema is working by checking a product page, blog post, and booking page in Rich Results Test
• Crawl the redesigned site with Screaming Frog and export canonical tags for comparison against pre-redesign data
• Verify every canonical tag is correct: self-referencing to the new URL for standard pages, or pointing to the intended destination for custom canonicals
• Check that no pages accidentally have noindex tags that should not have them
• Run PageSpeed Insights on your top 10 pages and compare against pre-redesign CWV scores
• Address any CWV regressions before the redesign goes fully live
• Verify Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags are present on key pages by sharing test links on social media
• Confirm robots.txt is accessible and contains the same directives as before (or updated intentionally)
• Verify XML sitemap is generating correctly with all new URLs included
• Run a final Rich Results Test on every page type that had structured data before the redesign