It’s not just me. Most major players like Uber https://dallas.uber.com, at the writing of this post get blank pages on their Wix sitess, but what upsets me is, that unlike my company. My visitors were greeted by full display Wix Ad. And if they joined, I got $0. Further, they refused me multiple times for their affiliate program. Also the language settings were redirecting my users for almost a year as explained below. It’s so frustrating that so many big tech companies, including Amazon, Wix and many affliate networks don’t play fairly. Most people who set up a Wix account will point their domain to the ns12.wixdns.net, and ns13.wixdns.net and forget about it, but this may not be the best option.
If you have ever tried to connect Wix multilingual plugins, features or apps, you may not know this, but language subdomains are automatically created on your DNS entries. it.yourdomain.com will point to italian, in.yourdomain.com will point to Indian content.
I have been with wix for about 18 months, and although I love the service, they are plagued with bugs and are, quite honestly shady when it comes to stealing traffic and not respecting their users.
About a year ago, I uninstalled multilingual, as it was not an automated process. I would have to go in an manually translate blog posts to different languages. When I removed the plugin, what would appear on the page for it.mydomain.com and en.mydomain.com or in.mydomain.com? A big-ass Wix Splash page promoting Wix.com Was I being paid to advertise their service? NO. In fact, I kept wondering why I wasn’t being approved for their affiliate program. Well, it turns out. Why would they need to pay a sucker like me, when they could simply advertise on my site with me unawares?
I do believe Wix is the best visual development platform for blogs and websites, technically. But they have proven to me over the past 18 months that they don’t care, and they are all about the upsells.
After I discovered…what they were doing, I was furious and contacted them, and they gave me some doubletalk. I deleted all of the language subs, and thought things were fine. six months later, I discovered one in particular is up again. This time they set up a DNS record and are advertising their service on my site without my permission. One wonders if this is just an unethical practice or if it runs afoul of ICANN rules. In any event, it will take a monumental effort to switch hosting companies at this point of my development, but I’m going to.
In the meantime, I did reapply to be an affiliate (before I discovered in.trendsetic.com was being hijacked by Wix. They didn’t even bother answering my application. The reason in burns me up more than usual, is because I’m on the Chagari app, which is an Indian Social Network and I’m sure that sub was design to siphon off traffic from India.
I’m done with Wix. Switching to Bluehost.com and going back to WordPress. Yes, that’s an affiliate link, because I’ll need money to hire a team of developers to help me transition. WordPress may be cumbersome, but I have never had a hosting company steal my traffic right under my face and deny me entry into their affiliate program simultaneously.
The real tragedy here is that Wix doesn’t need to do this. In one hand their staff praised my site and the HARD work and sacrifice it took to make our site happen. But in spite the numerous bugs and suggestions I reported to them over all this time, to spite me and my team supporting their platform, they feel no need to return the kindness. Why should they pay me to bring them customers when they can advertise on my site without me knowing for free?
Their customer support is the best, and their software is amazing, the sad thing is, they don’t need to resort to these tactics, but they do. Until Wix learns to fully appreciate their customers, they will always be 2nd tier.
