Jesselton Point
Rebuilt in three languages mid-relocation, then defended.

Who they are

Kota Kinabalu’s gateway to the islands

Jesselton Point is the ferry terminal in Kota Kinabalu for Manukan, Sapi, Mamutik and Gaya islands. Fourteen registered boat operators sell the tickets; the terminal company manages the terminal and must not look as though it sells tickets itself. In March 2026 the terminal moved temporarily to South Jetty inside Kota Kinabalu Port.

What was broken

A redesign that also had to announce a move

The old site was WordPress. The client wanted a full redesign — and the new site had to tell every visitor, in more than one language, that the terminal was operating from a different jetty for now, who runs the terminal, who sells the boat tickets, and whether it was safe to board.

What we did

Built in six weeks, then defended for three months

1. 1

   Rebuilt from scratch on the Static Stack

   38 pages in English, Malay and Chinese: an interactive island map, an operator directory with all 14 logos, facilities, gallery, news and a 30-question FAQ. The temporary move is on every page.

2. 2

   Nine feedback rounds in six weeks

   Including scanned PDFs with handwritten notes. Management approved go-live on 30 April 2026.

3. 3

   Found and stopped a hijack

   In June, setting up analytics for a new client contact showed Google visits had fallen to zero a month earlier. A hijacked subdomain was serving gambling content and the intruder had asked Google to hide the whole site. Bingo removed the leftover setting that allowed it the same day, ejected the intruder from the site’s Google account, and cancelled the removal requests.

4. 4

   Replaced a boarding sign that had been lying

   The homepage “Safe to Board” sign had shown green since launch regardless of conditions. It was rebuilt so the terminal team sets the status themselves, weather comes from a live feed, and the sign can never fall back to green on its own. A request to flip it red automatically in heavy rain was declined: weather can be automatic; a boarding-safety verdict must be a human’s.

5. 5

   Still on it

   A stale browser-security warning left over from the hijack is being disputed. Independent scanners, including Google’s, report the site clean.

What changed

Back in Google, with a sign the terminal controls

• The site is back in Google search and ranked at position 2 for its own name (June–September 2026).
• Boarding status is set by the terminal team, weather is live, and the temporary jetty is explained on every page in three languages.
• Search traffic is not the story here: the Kota Kinabalu–Labuan ferry has been suspended since April 2026 and the terminal moved in March, so year-on-year comparisons say more about ferries than about the website. We do not print a growth figure we cannot stand behind.

Project record March–September 2026; Google Search Console for jesseltonpoint.com.my, checked 5 and 23 Sep 2026.