Website Migration SEO Checklist for Kenyan Businesses
A step-by-step checklist for moving or redesigning a website in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda or Rwanda without losing Google traffic, including two migration mistakes from our own rebuild.
A website migration is any change that makes Google re-learn your site: a new domain, a move from a .com to a .co.ke, a switch from Wix or an old custom build to WordPress, a new URL structure, or a redesign that renames pages. Done carefully, nobody notices. Done carelessly, a business that got steady enquiries from Google can lose most of them in a week and spend months getting them back.
This checklist is written for businesses in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda that are about to move or redesign a website. It is the same list we work through on client projects, and it includes two mistakes we made on our own site in 2026, so you can see what a migration failure looks like in real data.
The short version
- Export every URL that gets traffic or links before anything changes.
- Map each old URL to its closest new equivalent, one to one.
- Use permanent (301) redirects, with one hop, and keep them for at least a year.
- Check robots.txt, noindex settings and the XML sitemap on launch day.
- Watch Google Search Console daily for the first two weeks.
Why migrations lose traffic
Google ranks URLs, not businesses. When a page moves, the reputation it earned through links, clicks and history sits on the old address until Google sees a redirect and records the move. Google moves sites URL by URL, so there is no single moment when the whole site switches over. If the old URL returns a 404, points to the homepage, or sits behind a chain of redirects, that reputation is lost or diluted.
Google’s own guidance on site moves with URL changes is to prepare a URL map before the move, redirect old addresses to new ones, and keep those redirects for as long as possible, generally at least one year. Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed the one-year figure in 2021 and added that keeping them indefinitely is better for users. Three months, which is what many hosting migrations in Nairobi default to, is too short.
Before you migrate: the preparation checklist
1. Benchmark what you have
Export the last 16 months of performance from Google Search Console: pages, queries, clicks and impressions. Save a copy of your Google Analytics landing page report. If you skip this, you will not be able to tell whether a drop after launch is the migration or normal seasonality, which matters a lot for tourism businesses whose traffic swings between the long rains and the peak safari months.
2. Crawl the old site
Run a crawler such as Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) over the current site and save the full list of URLs, titles, meta descriptions, H1s and canonical tags. Add any URL from Search Console or Analytics that the crawler missed. Old campaign pages, PDF brochures and image URLs often still get traffic and backlinks.
3. List your backlinks
Pull the pages that other websites link to, using Search Console’s Links report or a tool such as Ubersuggest or Ahrefs. In East Africa, the links that matter most are often from directories, tourism boards, newspapers such as the Nation or The Citizen, partner lodges and association member lists. Those sites rarely update links, so every one of those URLs needs a redirect.
4. Build the redirect map
Make a spreadsheet with two columns: old URL and new URL. Every old URL that has traffic, links or rankings gets a specific new destination that answers the same search. A safari itinerary redirects to the same itinerary, not to the tours listing. A service page redirects to the same service, not to the homepage. Redirecting everything to the homepage is treated by Google much like a 404.
Where a page is being dropped with no equivalent, choose the closest parent page. If nothing is close, letting it return 410 (gone) is more honest than a misleading redirect.
5. Carry the SEO elements across
Copy titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text and structured data from the old pages to the new ones, then improve them. A redesign is a good time to rewrite thin pages, but rewriting every page at the same time as changing every URL makes it impossible to know which change caused a ranking movement. Google’s own advice is to make big changes one after another, not all at once.
6. Block the staging site properly
Your developer will build the new site on a staging address. Protect it with a password rather than relying only on a noindex tag or a robots.txt block. Password protection keeps it out of Google and, more importantly, stops the block settings from being copied to the live site by mistake.
Launch day checklist
- Robots.txt. Open yourdomain/robots.txt and check it does not say
Disallow: /. - Search engine visibility. In WordPress, go to Settings, then Reading, and make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unticked.
- Noindex tags. Spot-check five important pages with View Source and search for “noindex”.
- Redirects live. Test the top 50 old URLs from your map. Each should return a single 301 to the right page.
- HTTPS and one version of the domain. http, https, www and non-www should all end on one address.
- Canonical tags. They should point to the new live URLs, not the staging domain.
- XML sitemap. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console. Keep the old sitemap submitted for a few weeks so Google recrawls the old URLs and sees the redirects.
- Tracking. Confirm Google Analytics, Google Ads conversion tags and the Meta pixel fire on the new site, including on form thank-you pages and WhatsApp clicks.
- Google Business Profile. Update the website link on every branch profile if the domain or landing pages changed.
- Domain change only: use the Change of Address tool in Search Console after redirects are live.
What went wrong on our own site
We rebuilt nairobimarketing.com in 2026. Two problems from that rebuild are worth sharing because they are the two most common migration faults we find on client sites.
A robots.txt file blocking the whole site. A physical robots.txt file with a block-all rule was left on the server after the build. WordPress normally generates robots.txt itself, but a physical file overrides it, so the setting in the dashboard looked fine while Google was being told not to crawl anything. Search Console data showed the effect in falling impressions. Deleting the file fixed it.
A redirect conflict. Old URLs had redirect rules that pointed into each other. Some pages looped and never loaded, which Google treats as an error. Rank Math’s redirection manager let us find the conflicting rules and restore the three old URLs that still had search demand, while retiring the rest.
The lesson: both faults were invisible to anyone browsing the site normally. Only a crawl, a look at robots.txt and Search Console data revealed them.
After launch: the first 90 days
Weeks one and two
Check Search Console every day. Look at the Pages report for sudden rises in “Not found (404)”, “Excluded by noindex” or “Redirect error”. Use URL Inspection on your ten most valuable pages and request indexing. Compare clicks and impressions with the same days in the previous period.
Weeks three to eight
Some movement in rankings is normal while Google processes the redirects. For a medium-sized site, Google says most pages move in the index within a few weeks. A drop that keeps growing after the first month, or that hits specific page types, usually points to a mapping gap. Go back to the redirect map and check those URLs.
Months three to twelve
Update internal links so they point straight at the new URLs instead of passing through redirects. Ask the most valuable linking sites to update their links. Leave the redirects in place. If you changed domain, keep paying for the old domain for at least a year so nobody else can register it.
Notes for each East African market
Kenya. If you move from a .com to a .co.ke (or the reverse), treat it as a full domain change with the Change of Address tool. .co.ke domains are registered through KeNIC-accredited registrars, and expired .co.ke domains are re-registered quickly, so do not let the old one lapse.
Tanzania. Safari and lodge websites in Arusha and Zanzibar get most of their organic traffic from the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, not from Tanzania. Benchmark Search Console by country before the move, because a drop in one source market can be hidden inside a stable total.
Uganda. Gorilla and primate trekking operators often run several microsites for permits, lodges and tours. Merging them into one site is a migration of several domains at once. Map each one separately.
Rwanda. Businesses that serve both local and international customers often publish in English and French or Kinyarwanda. If the new site changes the language URL structure, keep hreflang tags consistent and redirect each language version to its own counterpart.
Hosting moves with no URL changes
Moving from one host to another without changing addresses is lower risk, but it still goes wrong. The usual problems are a slower server, missing SSL certificates, and email records (MX, SPF, DKIM) that are not copied, which stops enquiry emails from arriving. Lower the DNS TTL a day before the switch, move during a quiet period, and test forms and email straight after. Server location also affects speed for overseas visitors, which matters for any business selling to international travellers.
What a migration costs
For a small business site under 30 pages, migration SEO is usually part of the build. Our web design packages start at KES 50,000 for sites under 10 pages and KES 80,000 under 30, and include the redirect map and launch checks. Larger migrations of hotel, safari or directory sites with hundreds of URLs need their own audit. If your traffic has already dropped after a redesign, an SEO audit starts with the steps in this checklist.
Planning a rebuild? Read what a website costs in Kenya and whether your business needs a new website before you brief a developer.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to recover traffic after a website migration?
If redirects and indexing are correct, most sites settle within one to three months. Sites with mapping errors or blocked crawling can take far longer, and recovery only starts after the fault is fixed.
Should I use 301 or 302 redirects?
Use 301 (or 308) for permanent moves. A 302 tells Google the move is temporary, so it may keep the old URL in its index.
Can I delete redirects after Google has indexed the new pages?
Keep them for at least a year, and longer if old links still send visitors. Removing them early can undo the transfer.
Will changing my website design alone affect SEO?
A new design that keeps the same URLs and content usually has little effect. Rankings move when URLs, content, internal links or page speed change, which most redesigns do at the same time.
