Website builder
Moving your website off GoDaddy Website Builder
Of every platform we migrate businesses away from, this one has the clearest terms — and they are not in your favour. GoDaddy’s Website Services Agreement states in plain language that the website belongs to GoDaddy and that you may not move it. Here is what that means, and what we do about it.
Where you actually stand
This page is specifically about GoDaddy Websites + Marketing, the do-it-yourself builder, which GoDaddy governs under its Website Services Agreement. That is an important distinction: GoDaddy’s separate done-for-you Website Design Services product has different terms that do transfer design ownership to the customer. If you are not sure which you have, we can tell you.
For Websites + Marketing, Section 8 of the agreement is unusually direct. It states that the websites created using Website Services belong to GoDaddy, and that you may not migrate or transfer such a website to another hosting provider.
So this is not a case of a missing export button. It is a contractual position. You are paying a monthly fee for a licence to use a website that the agreement says is not yours, hosted on infrastructure you cannot leave with it.
GoDaddy’s agreement says the website belongs to GoDaddy
We would not make a claim this strong about a named company without quoting the document. Here is the relevant language from the GoDaddy Website Services Agreement, Section 8, "Website Hosting and Ownership".
Your own uploaded content — your text, your photos — remains yours. The website is a different matter. Note also that your domain is separate: GoDaddy is an ICANN-accredited registrar, your domain is registered to you, and it is transferable under the normal rules. The lock-in is on the site, not the address.
“the websites and ShowinBio pages created using Website Services belong to GoDaddy, and all such websites and ShowinBio pages (including all copies thereof) are subject to copyright, trademark, patent, and other intellectual property laws of the United States and foreign countries.”
“The websites and ShowinBio pages created using Website Services are built on and integrated with GoDaddy’s hosting platform, and you may not migrate or otherwise transfer any such website to another hosting provider.”
What this costs you day to day
No export, by design
The only documented data export is online store products to CSV. There is no site export, and the agreement prohibits migration in any case.
You are renting, indefinitely
The monthly fee is not buying you an asset. It is buying continued access to something the agreement says belongs to GoDaddy. There is no point at which you have paid enough to own it.
The templates are thin and widely reused
Section templates give you speed to launch and very little differentiation. If your competitors down the road used the same builder, you will notice.
SEO control is shallow
You get title and description fields. You do not get real control over structured data, URL architecture, redirects or how the page is rendered — which is most of what actually moves the needle now.
Cancelling ends your licence
The agreement terminates your licence to the website on cancellation. Get your content out before you cancel, not after.
How the rebuild works
Six steps, and your involvement is deliberately minimal. We handle the technical side, bring you recommendations, and come to you when a decision or an approval is genuinely needed. You review the finished site before it goes live.
- 1
We audit your current website
We review your existing site — pages, content, SEO, functionality and structure. We identify what should be improved, updated or dropped, rather than copying over things that were never working.
- 2
We rebuild the site in Next.js
Your branding and content carry over, but the site is rebuilt from the ground up in Next.js. That removes the database and plugin dependencies behind most performance, security and maintenance problems.
For GoDaddy Website Builder specifically: We capture everything from your live site — every page, every image at full resolution, the whole URL structure. Given the terms, the practical advice is to keep your GoDaddy plan active until the new site is live and verified. Do not cancel first.
- 3
We improve it while we rebuild it
This is the part people underestimate. We are not handing you a newer version of the same website. We look for real gains in navigation, page layout, calls to action, mobile experience, content and SEO.
- 4
We preserve your SEO
Existing URLs, page titles, metadata and redirects are all accounted for in the transition. The goal is to move platforms without giving up the search visibility you have already built.
- 5
We test everything before it goes live
Desktop and mobile, every form, every piece of functionality, all content reviewed — checked and working before we touch anything in production.
- 6
We launch
Once you approve it, we move the new site into production. From your side the transition should be uneventful, and your visitors should never see an interruption.
What comes with you
- All page content from your live site
- Your images at full resolution, re-optimised
- Your branding and colour palette
- Your URL structure, preserved or redirected
- Your domain — which was always yours, and stays that way
- Forms, rebuilt and delivering to the same inbox
You own what we build. In writing.
Every rebuild is delivered with a Certificate of Ownership and IP Assignment: a signed document assigning you the copyright in the site code and the content we produce for you, and recording the transfer of the repository, the domain and the hosting account into your name. You are not licensing your website from us. If you ever leave, you take the whole thing with you — the code, the content, the domain, the repository and the deployment history.
- Full copyright assignment in the site code and the content we write for you.
- The Git repository transferred to an account you control, with its full history.
- The domain in your name, at a registrar of your choosing.
- Hosting in your own Vercel account if you want it there — we can manage it, but ownership sits with you.
- No proprietary page builder, no template licence, and nothing that stops working if you stop paying us.
Questions people ask about leaving GoDaddy Website Builder
- Does GoDaddy really own my website?
- For Websites + Marketing, that is what their Website Services Agreement says. Section 8 states the websites created using Website Services "belong to GoDaddy" and that you "may not migrate or otherwise transfer any such website to another hosting provider." Your uploaded content remains yours. Note that GoDaddy’s separate done-for-you Website Design Services product has different terms that do transfer design ownership — so it depends which product you bought.
- Can I take my domain with me?
- Yes. Your domain and your website are governed separately. GoDaddy is an ICANN-accredited registrar and domains registered there belong to you and transfer under the standard rules. Many customers keep the domain at GoDaddy and simply point it at the new site — that works fine too.
- Should I cancel my GoDaddy plan first?
- No. Keep it running until the new site is live and you have confirmed everything works. Cancelling terminates your licence to the website, and you would lose access to the content we still need to capture. We will tell you exactly when it is safe to cancel.
- How do you get my content out if there is no export?
- We work from the live site. We crawl it, capture the content and pull the images at full resolution, then map every URL so the redirects are complete. Nothing gets retyped and nothing gets missed.
- What will I own afterwards?
- The code, the content, the repository and the domain. We deliver a signed Certificate of Ownership and IP Assignment recording all of it. That is the entire point of the exercise.
Sources
Every claim made about GoDaddy Websites + Marketing on this page comes from GoDaddy Websites + Marketing’s own published documentation. Read them yourself. We would rather you did.
Also worth reading
Wix
Wix documents it plainly: there is no way to export your site, and their content may not be migrated off Wix.
Read the Wix pageWeb.com / Network Solutions
Their terms are clear on two things: third-party design assets do not transfer, and they will not move your site for you.
Read the Web.com pageVistaprint (Vista x Wix)
Vistaprint websites are Wix sites now — and their earlier builder, Webs.com, was retired in August 2023.
Read the Vistaprint page
Start by finding out where you actually are
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