Wordpress Static Export (Simply Static/WP2Static) Not Displaying Properly When Uploaded to Netlify

Support
1

Hi,
I’m a big fan of Netlify, but have been having an issue where wordpress static exports made with simply static or wp2static (the most popular static generator plugins for Wordpress) seem to export and display perfectly on localhost, but are ruined/distorted once they are uploaded to Netlify in terms of style, menu, and overall display. Any idea how to fix this issue? Thanks.

P.S. Screenshots/links of the proper and improper display should be posted below.

Proper display:

Improper Display:

startupsystemsbaddisplay
startupsystemsbaddisplay1894×842 171 KB

2

In my experience, none of the WordPress SSG plugins works perfectly. wp2static has about a million options, IIRC, so you might try changing some of your settings. FWIW, when I need to do this I create a custom theme that contains the bare minimum of WordPress code, with placeholders that allow me to mass-update the site with the code I want (typically: headers, footers, navigation, and search). I then use SiteSucker to create an HTML version of the site, and then I use BBEdit includes, which make mass-updates easy … once everything is set up. It’s still a long, iterative process and not much fun. You can see the results of one such site here: https://non-intervention.netlify.com

3

Thanks. I was able to resolve the issue. Simply replacing all of the exported http:// links to https:// in my text editor seems to have fixed the problem of http content not being displayed properly when uploaded to Netlify.

4

Well, that was easy.

5

thanks for letting us know what fixed the issue :]

6

Sure, my pleasure. Netlify is great, and Simply Static seems to do a good job of creating a clean(for wordpress) static zip export of most wordpress (.org) websites. I believe the switch to https by default for new Netlify deployments was what blocked the old http:// links from displaying or displaying properly, which is why I’m guessing replacing all http:// links with https:// worked so well. The new version of the website has been deployed (startup-systems.com) and seems to be working better than before (no more mixed content warning). Thanks again.

7

Hello brother, could you explain to me how it is done?

8

Hey there, @alex4 :wave:

If you are encountering the same issue outlined in this thread, have you tried the steps that @tulaneadam outlined in post three?

Second, have you looked through this resource? It is a compilation of all of our build and deploy resources. This is a good starting point.

If you have worked through those guides and are still encountering issues please share the following information:

  • the name of your build instance: “example-jones.netlify.com”
  • what you have already tried
  • any error messages you have received in your terminal window or in the developer console
9

Sure, you can unzip the exported wordpress simply static file on your computer, then open the folder in VSCode (or any other code editor), search and replace all instances of “http://” with “https://”, save the changes and upload/import to netlify.

10

Hi there, I know this is an old post, but I thought this might help some of the people still looking for a fix for this in 2025, since i came here for that reason.

It is the year of AI. I had many images and styling problems after converting from Wordpress to Static.
I simply downloaded Cursor (Ai code editor), uploaded the static html folder, told it what i was experiencing and what i wanted to do (deploy on github+netlify) and it fixed every single error, after one single prompt and about 10 minutes of it cooking, everything works absolutely flawlessly. 10/10 can recommend.