Arabic SEO Is Not Translated English SEO

Two audiences, two sets of queries

A translated page answers the English query in Arabic words. It does not answer the question an Arabic speaker would type. Arabic has spelling variants, dialect words, and phrasing that differs from English even when the meaning is the same. Search for each language separately, with its own keyword research.

Give each language its own address

Put each language on its own URL, for example an /en path, rather than switching the language with a cookie or a script. Search engines index addresses, so a language that only appears after a click can be invisible.

Link the versions with hreflang

Tell search engines that the English and Arabic pages are versions of each other. Each page should list both alternates and point to itself, and the sitemap should carry the same pairs. Without this, the two pages can compete or the wrong one can be shown.

Write the metadata in Arabic

Title, description, headings and structured data should be written for the Arabic page, not copied in English. A search result in the wrong language, or a title cut off by a long translation, loses the click.

Check right-to-left layout is part of quality

Mirrored layout, correct punctuation, and numbers that read properly are part of how a page is judged by visitors. Slow or broken Arabic pages lose people before the content has a chance.

On our own site

Every public page here exists at its own English and Arabic address, links both with hreflang and in the sitemap, and has Arabic titles, descriptions and headings written for it. Arabic uses its own font files, loaded before the first paint, so the page appears quickly.