Moving a village website to a desa.id domain without losing visitors

By Mohammad Hilmi Bisri, S.Kom.. Published 14 October 2026.

A village website whose address still ends in .com, .id, .web.id, .my.id, or blogspot.com, or that sits on a subdomain of another provider, can be moved to desa.id (the domain for the official websites of Indonesian village governments) without starting from scratch. The condition is that the old address redirects to the new one, so that residents who open old links and visitors from Google still reach the page they are looking for.

The rules that require desa.id

• Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs Regulation (Peraturan Menteri Komunikasi dan Digital, Permenkomdigi) No. 5 of 2025 (external site) has been in force since 25 March 2025 and has not been amended. The .desa.id domain name is used for the official electronic addresses of village governments (Article 32(4)), and village governments must use it in running village government affairs (Article 34(1)).
• Domain name servers (DNS), the servers that point a website address to the server where the website is stored, must be within Indonesian jurisdiction (Article 58(1)). An agency that uses its own domain name servers must also use IP addresses (the numeric addresses of servers on the internet) within Indonesian jurisdiction (paragraph (4)). Villages may use the domain name servers provided by the Ministry (paragraph (3)).
• Regulation of the Minister of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions (Permendesa PDT) No. 16 of 2025 on the priorities for the 2026 Dana Desa (the Village Fund) states that village websites should preferably use hosting services and a domain name within Indonesia, namely desa.id (Attachment, Chapter II, letter G, point 2, letter b).

The chapter on domain names in Permenkomdigi 5/2025 sets no sanction for villages that still use another address. Its transitional provisions give state agencies that operate electronic systems one year from the date the regulation took effect to comply (Article 101(3)).

Under the 2026 Dana Desa rules, a village website counts as a digital village activity within the priority for building digital and technology infrastructure (Article 2(1)(g)). The village government's operating funds (at most 3% of the Dana Desa allocation, excluding the share for Koperasi Desa Merah Putih, the national village cooperative programme) may be used for website development training and for creating village media or a village blog (Article 2(3); Attachment, Chapter II, letter I, point 3). Hosting rental and domain renewal are not mentioned separately, so confirm the budget line with the village facilitator (pendamping desa).

What happens to the old address

The old address stays registered to whoever registered it, as long as it is renewed. Google can also keep showing its pages as long as they can still be opened and have no equivalent on the new website.

• A domain that is not renewed can be registered by someone else. According to the Domain Name Registration Policy version 9.0 of PANDI (Pengelola Nama Domain Internet Indonesia, the registry that manages .id domains), a deleted .id domain (including .web.id and .my.id) can still be restored for a penalty fee within a certain period, after which anyone can register it again (point 10.2).
• Google recommends keeping the old domain paid for at least one year after the move, so that no one else can buy it and use it for malicious purposes.
• If someone else buys the old domain, old links and the QR codes on old banners will take residents to that person's website.
• Email addresses on the old domain stop working when the domain does, including for recovering the passwords of village accounts.

Redirects are set up from the old domain and hosting accounts. If a former operator or a service provider holds those accounts, ask for access before the move.

How to move, by type of old website

With the Blogger method, the blog content stays on Blogger's servers. Given Article 58 of Permenkomdigi 5/2025 and the preference for hosting in Indonesia, first ask the regency or city communication and informatics office (dinas kominfo) whether this method is accepted.

Steps to move without losing visitors

1. Ask the regency or city dinas kominfo whether your village already has a desa.id address. The steps for registering one are in the article what a village website should contain, and how to buy the services is explained in the article procurement of goods and services in villages.
2. List the addresses of the important old pages, including PDF files and images, from the sitemap (the list of a website's pages for Google), the CMS (the software used to manage a website's content), or Search Console.
3. Set up the new website at the desa.id address. Google recommends using the same CMS as the old website and making one change at a time: move the address first, change the design later.
4. Match every old address with an equivalent new address. Do not redirect all the old pages to the home page, because Google may treat them as pages that were not found (soft 404).
5. Set up 301 redirects. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that takes visitors from an old address to the same page at the new address. According to Google, these redirects do not reduce the value of links to your website. Redirects from within the page (client side) are only a last resort if the server cannot be configured.
6. Register both the old and the new address in Search Console as the owner, with the same Google account. Then submit the move through the Change of Address tool and submit the new sitemap. For 180 days, the tool asks Google to give priority to the new address and to pass the old address's ranking signals on to it.
7. Monitor the results in Search Console. For a medium-sized website, Google may need several weeks or more to show the new address, and its position in search results may go up and down during that time.
8. Keep the redirects in place for as long as possible; according to Google, generally for at least one year. You may delete the old pages, as long as the redirects keep working and the old domain is still paid for.

If online gambling content was ever injected into the old website, clean it up before copying its content to the new website. How to do this is explained in the article hacked website with gambling spam.

HanzCodes services for village governments, including building and repairing websites, are on the solutions for villages page.

What to update after the move

• Village letterheads and document templates that show the website or email address.
• The village office sign, notice boards, billboards, banners, brochures, and QR codes that point to the old address.
• Links in the village's social media profiles, and the website field in the village office's Google Maps profile if the village manages it.
• Official email. Use an email address on the desa.id domain if the new hosting provides one, then change the recovery email on all village accounts. Keep the old email active while the old domain is still paid for.
• Links on the regency and district websites and on other sites. Google recommends contacting the people who manage those sites so that the links are updated.
• Links on the new website itself, including in PDF documents that mention the old address.
• The desa.id renewal schedule. The regency or city Domain Name Officer renews the domain no later than 35 calendar days after it expires (Article 44(2)(b) and (3)). If the renewal is late, the Director General has the authority to deactivate the domain (Article 45), and a domain that is not renewed within a year of being deactivated may be recommended for deletion (Article 46).

This article is a summary, not legal advice. For specific decisions, refer to the text of the regulations and consult the competent official or unit, for example the regency or city communication and informatics office (dinas kominfo) or the village facilitator (pendamping desa).