Weebly closes in the UAE and Saudi Arabia on 26 December. How do you move your site?

Is Weebly shutting down in the UAE and Saudi Arabia?

Yes. Weebly is winding down its services in 67 countries "due to changes in regulation and to simplify our global operations". The list includes the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain, plus Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, Pakistan, Singapore and Malaysia. Kuwait, Qatar, the US and the UK are not on it.

These dates come from Weebly's own notice:

So if your site was on Weebly in one of these countries, it has been offline for a month already. The account is still open, which means your content, images and domain are still within reach. After 26 December they are not.

What happens to my Weebly website and domain after 26 December?

You lose login access. Weebly's notice tells customers to download their data and transfer their custom domain before that date. Treat anything you have not exported by then as gone.

If Weebly is your domain registrar, the domain is the most urgent part. Your email, your Google listing and every link to your business depend on it. Weebly's notice lists three catches:

• A domain cannot be transferred within 60 days of registration. This is an ICANN rule, not Weebly's.
• Changing the registrant contact details (name, email or phone) triggers a 60-day lock. Do not edit them before you transfer.
• Country-code domains transfer differently. Weebly asks you to contact its support team about them.

Turning off the registrar lock also turns off Whois privacy protection, so set it up again with the new registrar. If you have Google Workspace through Weebly, Weebly asks you to contact support to move it to Google directly.

What does the Weebly export include, and what does it miss?

There are two exports. Account Settings > My Data > Download My Data gives you your account's content and data. Edit Site > Settings > General > Archive emails you a ZIP file of one site.

Read the small print on the site archive. Weebly's help centre says blog and store pages are not included, because they rely on its database. It also says some elements, such as the contact form and slideshow, may not work outside the Weebly editor, and that the ZIP cannot be imported back into Weebly. So the archive is a backup to rebuild from, not a site you can upload and switch on.

If you had a blog or a shop, copy that content by hand: every post, and every product name, description and photo. That is the slow part, so start with it.

Where should you move a Weebly site?

This is our advice, not Weebly's. Choose by what the site needs to do, not by which builder looks most like Weebly. Before you commit to any platform, confirm on its own website that it serves customers and supports payments in your country.

The last row matters more than usual this year. A builder leaving your country is exactly the risk a coded site removes. For a small brochure site, though, it can be more than you need. Our Framer vs Webflow vs Next.js comparison covers the trade-offs.

How do I keep my Google rankings when I move?

Your old pages are already offline, so do not wait. Google's guidance on site moves gives you the checklist:

1. 1List every old page address, using Google Search Console, your analytics or the files in the site archive.
2. 2Map each old address to its matching new page, not everything to the home page.
3. 3Add permanent server-side redirects (301 or 308) from each old address to its new one.
4. 4Keep the redirects for at least a year, which is Google's general advice.
5. 5If you also change domain, use the Change of Address tool in Search Console.

Keeping the same domain makes all of this much easier. That is one more reason to secure the domain first. Our guide to rebranding without losing your rankings goes deeper.

Worked example: a Dubai studio with a blog and a Weebly domain

This is a hypothetical scenario, not a client. A small interior design studio in Dubai built its site on Weebly: 8 pages, a blog with 30 posts, a contact form, and a .com domain bought through Weebly 3 years ago. The site went offline on 27 September.

1. 1Today: secure the domain. In Websites > Domains > Manage Domain, the owner turns off the registrar lock, copies the EPP code and starts the transfer at the new registrar. They do not touch the contact details first.
2. 2Same day: download everything. They run Download My Data, then the site Archive, and save both in two places.
3. 3This week: rescue the blog. The archive skips blog pages, so they copy all 30 posts, with titles, dates and images, into a document or spreadsheet. They do the same for testimonials and project photos.
4. 4Week 2: choose the platform. The studio posts twice a month and wants Arabic pages next year, so it shortlists Webflow and a coded Next.js site.
5. 5Weeks 3 to 5: rebuild. They rebuild the 8 pages, import the posts and replace the old contact form with a new one that sends to the studio's inbox.
6. 6Launch: redirect. They map each old page and post address to its new one, add 301 redirects and submit the new sitemap in Search Console.
7. 7Before 26 December: close the account. Once the domain has moved and nothing is left behind, they can ask Weebly to erase their data.

The timing is the point. The domain and the export have a hard deadline. The rebuild does not, as long as the content is safe.

Can Theepa help move a Weebly site?

Yes. Our website migrations service moves sites between platforms with the redirects in place, and our website design team can rebuild the site itself.

Sources

• Upcoming Changes to Weebly's Global Operations (Weebly Support, accessed 29 October 2026)
• Back Up Your Site (Weebly Support, accessed 29 October 2026)
• Weebly websites to shut down for UAE, Saudi Arabia, 65 more countries from September (Khaleej Times, 5 July 2026)
• Site moves with URL changes (Google Search Central, updated 20 August 2026)