Aurora Guest Units — Protecting 20 Years of SEO While Breaking OTA Dependency.
A forensic WordPress migration and SEO rebuild for a well-established self-catering guest house in Cape Town. The goal: preserve two decades of accumulated search equity while building a direct booking channel that doesn't pay Booking.com 18% on every reservation.
The Brief
The Situation
Aurora Guest Units is a well-established business with a strong reputation — 4.6★ on Google with 50+ reviews — but their digital presence was actively working against them. They were paying up to 18% commission to Booking.com on every reservation, with almost no direct booking channel of their own.
The Goal
Shift the business from OTA dependency to direct bookings — while protecting the 20 years of SEO equity the domain had quietly accumulated. The content was good; the platform it sat on, and the way it had been left unmanaged, were the problem.
The New Aurora Guest Units Website
Same content, same SEO value, rebuilt on a platform that finally works for the business.
What We Found
Our forensic audit uncovered issues that had been quietly costing the business bookings and search visibility for years.
Heavy OTA dependency
Up to 18% commission paid to Booking.com on every booking, with almost no direct booking channel of the client's own.
Legacy site on a dead CMS
The site ran on an old Kenesis .asp platform — 60+ bloated JavaScript files, no mobile-first architecture, zero scalability.
A deleted SEO page
The previous provider had removed a critical page that still had 6 internal links pointing to it — silently wasting link equity on every crawl.
20 years of untracked SEO equity
The domain had accumulated two decades of authority, backlinks and rankings — none of it documented, and all of it at risk in a migration.
Locked analytics
The historical Google Analytics property was stuck behind an unresponsive previous provider — leaving the client with no performance history.
Weak metadata
The Reviews page had a title and description of just "Reviews" (7 characters). The Our Units page had a duplicated meta description. The homepage title contained a typo — "Durbanviille".
No local search optimisation
The Google Business Profile existed but was not optimised for the keywords that actually drive bookings in the area.
No citation consistency
The business was not listed on key South African directories — leaving significant local visibility on the table.
Legacy vs Rebuilt
The same content, the same SEO equity, but a platform that finally works for the business instead of against it.
Old Kenesis .asp site
- Dead CMS — no active support
- 60+ bloated JavaScript files
- No mobile-first architecture
- Zero scalability
- Broken internal links (6 pointing to a deleted page)
- Weak metadata and typos in titles
- Locked analytics history
- No direct booking channel
New WordPress platform
- Modern, actively supported CMS
- Clean, lightweight codebase
- Mobile-first responsive design
- Room to grow and scale
- Every legacy URL preserved and redirected
- Corrected metadata across all 6 pages
- Fresh GA4 property, historical recovery requested
- "Book Direct & Save 15%" campaign live
What We’re Delivering
A complete digital rebuild — engineered to shift the business from OTA dependency to direct bookings, while protecting 20 years of accumulated SEO value.
Forensic SEO Preservation
Full crawl and documentation of every legacy URL, meta title, description and heading. All on-page SEO migrated to WordPress — with corrections to typos and weak metadata.
WordPress Rebuild & Migration
A modern, fast, mobile-first website replacing the outdated Kenesis CMS. All 6 content pages rebuilt and optimised.
301 Redirect Strategy
Every legacy .asp URL redirected to its new WordPress equivalent — including the deleted page — to ensure no loss of rankings, backlinks or link equity.
Google Business Profile Optimisation
Full profile overhaul — keyword-rich description, category refinement, geo-tagged photos, Q&A section, review generation workflow and direct booking link.
Analytics Recovery & Fresh Setup
New GA4 property installed and tracking. Formal recovery request submitted to Google to reclaim the historical Analytics property from the previous provider.
Citation Building
Listings on 7 South African directories — SA Venues, Wheretostay, Nightsbridge, Afristay, TripAdvisor, Yelp SA and Snupit — with consistent NAP data across all platforms.
Ongoing SEO & Social Retainer
8 social posts per month, community management, one client-written blog uploaded monthly, 10 target keywords tracked, 5 pages optimised per month, and monthly reporting.
Direct Booking Strategy
"Book Direct & Save 15%" campaign — reducing OTA commission costs, building a guest email list and creating a referral programme.
Targets & Milestones
Measurable goals tracked monthly — with the priority being a shift away from OTA dependency toward owned bookings.
| Metric | Target |
|---|---|
| Direct bookings | 40% within 6 months |
| Google reviews | 100+ within 6 months |
| Top 3 rankings | "Guest house Durbanville", "self-catering Aurora Cape Town", "accommodation near Tygerberg Hospital" |
| Organic traffic | +100% in 6 months |
| OTA commission saved | R1,000–R3,400+ per month |
What This Project Shows
Paying too much commission on bookings you could own?
If your business depends on a third-party platform for revenue, we can help you shift the balance — without losing the SEO equity you've already built.