Effects of HTML layout on Arabic websites and SEO

[marcelo-275398]

Hi all,

I was hoping someone may be able to help. We are putting together an Arabic website and due to reading right to left as opposed to left to right, the site HTML layout is mirrored compared to normal with everything flipped over.

What we are wondering is, will this effect SEO and what are the SEO implications of this? Do the search engine bots automaticlaly know to read the content etc differently and understand that everything is purposely mirrored / the HTML is in a different location compared to a site in the UK / US etc?

Any help on this would be most appreciated.

Cheers!

[Hannah_Smith]

Hi Marcelo,

Providing you've marked up the page appropriately - see http://www.i18nguy.com/markup/right-to-left.html - the bots shouldn't have any issues with understanding your content

You can see an example in the wild from Wikipedia here - http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/علم_المعلومات

I hope this helps

Hannah