If you are targeting different countries, your website is also multi-regional. An example of this may be a same-language site targeting different locations, such as USA and Canada.

This can create multiple issues, such as how to make localised content visible in the appropriate language, geotargeting issues and lots of duplicate content.

Tips for Multilingual Sites

Page Language – Google does not use code attributes to determine page language:

• Make your language obvious, use one language for navigation and content
• Use robots.txt to block search engines from crawling automatically translated pages

Language version

• Make sure each version is easy to find
• Keep different language content on separate URL’s
• Avoid automatic re-direction

URLs/ccTLDs

• Users as well as Google need clues to page content. As such, URLs and subfolders can provide an instant indication to the user  (www.example.com/ca/fr/)
• Use Country Specific  Domains (www.example.ca/)
• Use Geolocation settings in Webmaster Tools
• Make sure your Google Local information ties up with your web presence
• Server Location – not as important as it was, but still a consideration

Tips for Duplicate Content Issues

Google recommend that unique content is created for each different ‘group of users’, however this is not always possible

One way to avoid duplicate multilingual and multinational web content is to use the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x”. This helps Google to serve the correct language or regional URL to web searchers.

This is particularly useful where a site has the same content in another language for example Canadian www.mysite.ca, and French Canadian www.mysite.ca/fr

There are 3 ways for a webmaster to indicate how and where the content should be served.

• HTML link element – placed in the HTML section of  a webpage, a link is added pointing to the different language version of that webpage – for example:
• HTTP header – if a website publishes non-HTML files such as PDFs, an HTTP header can be used to indicate a different language version of a URL – for example:
  Link: ; rel="alternate"; hreflang="es"
• Sitemap. Instead of using markup code, a Sitemap can be submitted containing the information of the language version you wish to be served

For more information, visit the Google Support Files or read the excellent Search Engine Watch article.

-------------

About The Author - Lee Mancini is Managing Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.

Intended as a way for users to add more friends more quickly, it can also be taken advantage of for business. The beta version is only available in a US English language version, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get ready for the rollout of multi-language versions. According to statistics from 2012, there are over 6 million Facebook users in Saudi Arabia with 8% of users searching in English and over 3 million in the UAE, which are significant figures from a marketing perspective.

How does Graph Search Work?

Traditional Search Engine queries are keyword based. For example, you might search for “Restaurants in Dubai”. This will return a list of search results for you to browse. Using Graph Search, a user can ask more personal questions such as “What restaurants do my friends like?” or “friends that like football in Dubai”.

It is possible to refine searches to date, location, gender, photos, types of photos, specific interests (books, TV shows etc.), likes or any other information that may be contained in a profile. Due to the use of natural language, questions can also be asked using slang.

How can this help my Business?

Given that connections and interests are now fully searchable, the more information you share, the more likely you are to be found by potential customers and connections. Graph Search can be extended to any activity, so if you are looking for a squash partner, business partner or users that might be interested in an event you are putting on, you can see connections or potential connections in the same industry. You could also use Graph Search to find people that you may be interested in hiring for work. From a marketing perspective, access to information not previously so easily accessible means that you can find people that are more likely to want to connect.

Tips for getting noticed:

• If you haven’t already, create a page, and categorize it
• Use a vanity URL e.g. https://www.facebook.com/sekarisearch
• Search for things you think users may want to find and keep refining your pages until you show
• Make sure you add your address to show in local searches
• The more information you include the better
• Add profile photos
• Strength of connection is important as well as numbers of connections – likes, shares, mutual friends – as with all social media success – connect with the influencers

Privacy Issues

When Facebook Graph Search was launched there were many posts written regarding privacy and being careful about what you actively ‘like’. You would be surprised how many users had liked things that may be deemed as inappropriate socially and professionally. However, information can only be accessed using Graph Search if a user has shared information. If you are worried about what information can be accessed, check the security and privacy settings of your own Facebook account here: https://www.facebook.com/help/privacy

The Future of Facebook Graph Search?

Facebook is not taking on the likes of Google just yet, but given that search results from Bing are available from within the Facebook interface, it could be months rather than years before we see more search functionality in the Graph Search (currently Bing do not power Graph Search).

Advertising is not currently available within search results but given the demand for personalised results, this feature will no doubt be available soon.

As a user, this is a fun new way to find out more about your friends and make connections, but as a marketer, if you are not on the Facebook Search Graph, you could be missing out on valuable early equity even more so now that Facebook has started passing keyword data to webmasters. Connecting your brand and making connections is only going to become more important, so make sure you are on the grid!

-------------

About The Author - Lee Mancini is Managing Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.

The Statistics

• Video results appear in approximately 70% of the top 100 listings
• 76% of retailers have no tangible video presence in Google
• ‘Universal’ video (video in the SERPS) has a 41% click through rate (see image below)
• 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
• Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
• 25% of global YouTube views come from mobile devices

Regionally, the figures are perhaps even more impressive. YouTube views in MENA are the second highest in the world after USA and before Brazil. Saudi Arabia has the most views per capita in the world. That’s a lot of video watched, and a high percentage is being watched on mobile devices with only a small percentage of retailers being visible in the SERPS for video content. Clearly, the opportunity for YouTube video in the region is enormous.

Example of a YouTube video appearing in Universal Search

Google Trends for Video

Video data is now available in Google Trends, which means that you can now take popular search queries and explore traffic patterns for video and drill down into geographical location with data going back to 2008.

Looking at the image below – we can see that the Harlem Shake has reached its peak and is now starting to decline in popularity. This sort of information is going to be invaluable to decide when to invest in video content, seasonal trends, and gaps in the video marketplace.

What is Video SEO?

Put simply, Video SEO is the best practice of using keyword research, Titles, and various tags on a video platform such as Youtube.com as well as the optimisation of your site pages. Video SEO should be seen as an extension of website SEO, however many businesses think about their SEO strategy for website pages, and then choose to ignore enhancing the visibility of video or media content within those pages.

Here are some of the reasons:

• Video SEO is not fully understood as an essential part of media content strategy
• Retailers assume videos go viral of their own accord (some do, most don’t)
• Retailers assume that video automatically increases engagement and conversion rates simply by being present on the home page

Video SEO Best Practice

As with anything you want to find online, video listings in SERPS can be strongly influenced by:

• The use of Title Tags
• The use of keyword tags in the video environment
• Making sure your video has a description
• Inbound links to the actual video content
• Video sitemaps
• The use of annotation and closed captions within the video
• Hosting videos in a central root directory e.g. www.mysite.com/videos
• Adding URL’s to your description

Video SEO is also influenced by:

• How many users embed your video
• Channel or subscriber numbers
• Quality of Content and Engagement

Video SEO does not just happen of its own accord. As with SEO & Social it takes time to build up a following and gather momentum, but given that online video is in its infancy and many retailers are still not taking advantage of the space, and that online video is relatively Panda friendly, now may be the time to act while consumers are hungry for relevant video content. 

-------------

About The Author - Lee Mancini is Managing Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.

If you are thinking about launching overseas, you will need to consider international and multilingual SEO challenges as well as site migration issues in order to make sure that your website has the best possible start in a new market.

To avoid offending new customers and to make sure that they know what you are offering in their language, it is important to make sure you understand not just where you are optimising for, but who you are optimising for.

1.     Understand the Local Culture

It is extremely important to understand the local culture. Buying habits and user behaviour can be completely different depending on the country you are in.

Classic examples of getting it wrong can include:

• How payments are handled – cash or credit culture
• Which credit cards are accepted – PayPal is not accepted everywhere – check country specific preferences
• Photographs on site – for example: if you are marketing to a Korean audience, make sure you pick a Korean person in the photo. In the Middle East, using the wrong national dress is a common mistake.
• Colour used on your site – different colours mean different things to different markets which can make a difference to how trusted your website might be.
• Words and Meanings – does that phrase really mean what you think it does?
• Optimising for networks that don’t exist – does your target country even have Facebook and Twitter?
• Linguistic Differences – USA and UK share the same language but with different meanings, spelling and focus. In the Middle East, certain countries grew up using the American curriculum and some the British curriculum with many differences in the spellings of keyphrases and search terms used.

In Asia and the Middle East, consumers are fast adapting to the internet with e-commerce growing at an amazing rate, so it is going to be important to get this step right before launching your online business. Make sure that your web presence is culturally appropriate and relevant to your audience.

2.     Use Local Experts for Keyword Research & Translation

As e-commerce and online retail grows, it is not going to be enough to only consider English as the main language for ecommerce sites which means that translations are going to become even more important. Some of the issues include:

• Two Words, one Meaning – conversely the same word in different languages can have different meanings. Multi country translations can often have no appropriate word or phrase and colloquialisms can usually only be identified by locals. In some cases, words can be offensive to one market but not to another. Check before you embark on an international project
• Double Spacing - Asian and Arabic languages can have double spacing and different characters which means that it is even more difficult when it comes to character specific constraints such as Pay-per-Click campaigns, descriptions and Twitter (or appropriate social network)
• Forms & Form Fields - can also be affected in different languages due to the fact that different countries have different address styles and zip codes or  P.O. box.
• Don’t Translate for the sake of it – you may find that your target country prefers to do business in a single language. In the UAE for example, 80% of all search queries are in English.

Although it is possible to use free tools or online translators, there are no shortcuts when it comes to translating websites. If you want to be perceived as the best in your industry, make sure your content remains quality content and can be understood in every target country.

Online packages can be used as a guide to test market areas, but here at Sekari, we always perform keyword research and website translation with local experts and in-country teams. We also feel it is important to work with clients to make sure that what they want to say is what they want to say. 

3.     Google is not the only website

Google has the majority of the market share in English speaking countries, but in many markets, the main search engine is not always Google.

• China has Baidu
• South Korea uses Naver
• Russia uses Yandex
• The Czech Republic uses Seznam

As these networks get bigger, Google may not ever become the leading force in Asia and Russia, so make sure you understand where your audience is searching before optimising for the wrong network.

Not being aware of other search engines in your marketplace can result in missed opportunity wasted time and that’s before you even start on Bing or Mobile optimisation.

4.     Gain Link Authority in Local Markets

High Quality links and content can be found in many countries. However, if you want to be seen as relevant and quality in your own marketplace it is extremely important to reach out to influencers, webmasters, and bloggers from websites and domains that are local to your country.

This can be a challenge if there is also a language barrier to climb. Sourcing a quality local partner to build country specific relationships will help to strengthen your position online and offline both globally and locally.

5.     Using Multilingual Mark-Up Effectively

Whether you are using country specific domains or you are optimising one website for multi-country or multi-language, make use of Google Multilingual Mark-up to make sure that Google understands what content should be served in which Geographic region.

The hreflang tag also helps to avoid duplicate content issues from same language sites in different countries.

This hreflang attribute can be a confusing area even for seasoned SEO specialists so make sure you fully understand how it works before implementing or work with an international specialist. We will be writing a guide to hreflang in the coming weeks.

6.     Picking the right URL

Many brand websites struggle to clearly set out their URL strategy for international expansion.  Should the brand use a country level domain for each territory such as ‘brand.ae’ or ‘brand.co.sa’ in which it wants to market itself or create sub domains or sub directories such as ae.brand.com or brand.com/ae_en/.  Make sure you clearly define your strategy to give you the maximum flexibility and provide the correct country indicators to Google.  For example, we have come across brands in the past which have used brand.me to signify the Middle East, where the cctld of .ME actually is the country domain for Montenegro.  No good if you are trying to rank in countries in the Middle East.  Each country has its own Google Search engine and wherever possible local country content should be provided if you want to ensure your ranking specifically in that country. Again, hreflang can be useful here to provide the correct country domain to a searcher in a specific country when, for historical or brand development reasons, the .com domain has stronger search visibility within the country.

7.     Partner with the Right Specialist

Global International SEO specialists already know what to target, where the pitfalls might be, and areas to avoid. Talking to the experts before you embark on your Multilingual content and SEO strategy can save time, money and avoid any embarrassing recalls due to unintentionally offensive content or content that is not understood.

Using local experts can also mean that the right people get to hear about your business in advance of going live.

Talk to our Sekari team today to see how we can help with your Global SEO Strategy.

-------------

About The Author - Lee Mancini is Managing Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.

This can result in loss of business, loss of trust from customers and even if you know what to do, it can be a headache to go through the process of getting the ‘Malicious Website’ warning removed.

In the wake of last month’s Malware incidents with well-known websites such as The San Francisco Chronicle and YouTube, Google have launched a webmaster help center in order to do something about it.

No site is 100% free from the risk of being hacked but there are things that website owners can do to help prevent being compromised in the first place.

Once you have a Malicious Site Warning on your site, traffic will drop and consumers will leave, and very few of them will let you know about the experience until it’s too late. Check your Analytics and check your own web rankings from time to time.

Even if you know what you are doing, getting Malicious Site Warnings removed can be a real headache, which is why the Hacked Sites Help Center is going to be a real benefit to webmasters with a step-by-step guide to identifying vulnerabilities and fixing them.

After watching Google's overview video, you can decide if you want to go through the recovery process yourself or enlist the help of a professional webmaster.

If you decide to recover a hacked site yourself, the recovery series includes instructions and an overview video from beginner to advanced:

• Contact your web host and build a support team
• Quarantine
• Webmaster Tools
• Assess the damage (spam or malware)
• Identify the Vulnerability
• Clean and maintain your site
• Request a review

If you have experienced any recent hacks and you need some help to recover from an attack – why not talk to our specialists today?

-------------

About The Author - Lee Mancini is Managing Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.

The good news is that where there is a challenge, there is an opportunity – and for the most part, Arabic keyword terms offer relatively low competition and are relatively easy to attain good positioning for. However, although Arabic as a language is a far stretch from English, many mainstream SEO tactics still apply – we’ll cover some here:

On-Site Optimisation 

The same rules apply for Arabic as English. Perform a standard content audit ensuring that the following are all in-line with SEO best practices: 

• Title tags, meta descriptions and H1,2,3’s
• Quality, well presented and easily digestible content
• Intuitive, logical site navigation and structure
• Natural, authentic keyword use (do not stuff keywords!) 

If your site has more than one language, be sure to implement the HREF=LANG tag (see more on this here), and link from your other languages to Arabic (and vice versa). 

If you’re targeting multiple Arabic speaking countries (for example: Egypt and Saudi Arabia), follow SEO best practice and use either subdomains, subfolders or ccTLD’s (more on these here) to serve these individual markets most effectively. Remember to set your geo-targeting preference in Google Webmaster tools. 

Off-Site Optimisation 

Arabic SEO, like any other Google-focused SEO strategy, requires links, and as always, the more relevant the better. Link building in Arabic is a challenge, but the fundamentals still apply. Of most importance is recognising that your linking efforts needn’t be 100% Arabic. A blend of English and Arabic links is absolutely fine and diversity is, as always, key. 

Here are some basics to get you started: 

Submit To Directories & Local Sites

Your first port of call should always be submission to relevant business and local directories. There are a handful of good Arabic directories that you can submit to. Don’t be afraid to submit to English directories as well – if they’re local and relevant, submit to them. Be sure to check Araboo’s list of Arabic directories and search engines.

Approach Arabic Bloggers & Publishers

Guest blogging works just as well in Arabic as in English. In fact, you’re likely to achieve a better success rate approaching Arabic bloggers with a guest blogging pitch (due to the fact that English webmasters are spammed with these requests all the time). 

Bigger publishers will most likely require payment for a guest post, which will need to be assessed on a case by case basis. Generally speaking, a good blend of niche guest blogging arrangements with a dash of mainstream publisher publicity works well.

Get Those Press Releases Out

Arabic press releases are a great opportunity to gain contextual, relevant links on Arabic websites. There are two approaches when it comes to getting your press releases featured, both of which have their respective pros and cons:

The Mass Market Approach

You can use mainstream PR distribution services like PRWeb and PRNewswire (PRN has a good base of 150 Arabic publishers) to get mass market exposure. This is will get you maximum exposure, but you may face the issue of low-relevance and duplicate content.

The Targeted Approach

A more targeted approach would be to create a list of relevant local publishers and get in touch with them personally with a view to developing a relationship with the editor or whoever handles the press releases. You can then send a (slightly) personalised PR to each publisher to maximise SEO benefit and gain highly relevant, unique content links.

Content, Content, Content…

The old maxim of “content is king” is just as true with Arabic SEO as English. Whether its creating stellar content for your blog, or creating videos, infographics, slideshows or case studies for syndication, quality is key. Simple tips include:

• Distribute Arabic videos with transcripts to major video sites (Youtube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, etc) and relevant publishers/bloggers
• Distribute Arabic ebooks, slideshows and presentations to document sharing sites (Slideshare, Docstoc, Doxtop, Issuu, Scribd)
• Distribute Arabic infographics to infographic directories, as well as a targeted group of bloggers/publishers

As mentioned, the Arabic web is still in its infancy which creates an ideal opportunity for content marketers to create top-notch content. Yes, the market is still small, but if you create solid, share-worthy content, it’s that much easier to get it noticed. Be sure to read Search Engine Journal’s Fundamentals of Content Marketing post if you’re new to the topic.

Analyse and Learn From Competitors

Last but certainly not least is competitor analysis. As with English SEO, competitor link analysis is an essential activity. Open Site Explorer and Majestic SEO work just as well with Arabic sites and will often uncover some fantastic backlink sources.

Obviously, the aim here is not to duplicate your competitor’s profile, or even create a combination of the top ten profiles, but rather to draw inspiration and ideas for your own link sources. Take the best of all worlds and combine it with your own creative link acquisition strategy.

Wrapping Up

Arabic SEO presents a unique challenge and an equally unique opportunity. Follow English SEO best practices and focus on producing the in-demand Arabic content that the web lacks and you’re on the right track to a highly effective Arabic SEO campaign.

--------------------------------

About The Author - Derek Jansen is Search & Social Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.

Ridiculed as “Facebook for nerds,” Google+ has had a rough start since its debut just over one year ago, even with the power of its ferocious mama bear behind it. It does have 150 million active users and the world’s biggest ad engine promoting it, so it can’t be ignored. However, no one is quite sure if it is a Facebook Killer or another Orkut. Unless you are from Brazil, where it is still popular, Orkut looks like nothing more than a spellcheck hiccup. Actually, it was Google’s first attempt at a social network way back in 2004. Maybe the world wasn’t ready.

If you are among the (relatively) few, the proud, the Google+ for business enthusiasts, you are probably looking at a screen full of empty circles and wondering how to make this tool pay off. You need followers and followers need you. If you were one of the early “invite-only” users, you got a fistful of industry bigwigs and Google employees to follow. Hopefully, some of them followed you back. If not, you probably did the same thing to grow followers as you did with Facebook and Twitter – finding the influencers and replying to their posts. Perhaps you even tried to do a contest and were shocked to learn that it’s against the rules.

Here are the next five steps to becoming a ring leader in the world of Circles.

Step 1 - Make It Pop

If you don’t have a Brand page, make it now. Make it as attractive and professional as your website with photos, videos, maps and quirky quotes. Keep “mobile first” design in mind, because Google+ works even better on the small screens and mobile devices will outpace desktop access to the web within two years.

Step 2 - Hangout With Your Audience

These video chat rooms have possibly become the most popular feature of the network and are beginning to replace teleconferencing. Use it for Q&A’s, press releases, mini- conferences or even paid seminars. These types of events position you as someone to be followed and recommended.

Step 3 - Understand (and use) The Strategic +1

It can be used like a Facebook Like, but the +1 in a Google+ conversation alerts the individual that you agree or find the comment relevant. Nothing is as flattering as outright flattery, so choose the people you want to pay attention to you, then reach out and + someone.

Step 4 - Utilise Extended Circles

These can act like secondary connections on LinkedIn, in that you don’t know them, but the people you know, know them. When you have something that you are proud of and will really stand out, share it with the larger world and you will draw more influencers into your Circles. Caution: Use this sparingly. Shouting out too frequently is somewhat comparable typing in ALL CAPS.

Step 5- Connect, Direct...

If you’re fortunate enough to be working for a big brand, investigate the opportunity of Google+ Direct Connect. Direct connect provides further connectivity between web pages and Google Plus pages. If you are now wondering if all this effort is worth it, here are 20 reasons to dig in. One of the best is “data liberation.” Google gives you the option to walk away with your data anytime. Surprisingly “delete” apparently really does mean “delete.”

Whether or not your target market currently utilises Google+ or not, there’s no harm in getting started with these pointers. If anything, it’s complementary to your SEO efforts and (hopefully) an investment in the future.

--------------------------------

About The Author - Derek Jansen is Search & Social Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (February 2012):

Mazagan Beach Resort, part of the global Kerzner Group, has appointed Sekari to develop their multilingual SEO strategy throughout the UK, France and Morocco.Providing the very finest luxury resort experience in Morocco, Mazagan Beach Resort offers breathtaking views on the Atlantic Ocean and boasts an exclusive Gary Player Golf Course, a tranquil ESPA Spa and the largest Casino in the country.

As SEO experts in the MENA region, Sekari were the obvious partner of choice to guide Mazagan's SEO strategy and help the luxury resort develop their online brand awareness, whilst building its customer acquisition channel online.

Sekari's multilingual capabilities, combined with a global reach through 15 search partners across the globe enable the delivery of highly successful localised search strategies in any global market.

Delivering the English and French Organic Optimisation Strategy for the website,Sekari will help Mazagan Beach Resort to aggressively target the UK and France; two key inbound markets for the Moroccan Luxury resort.With search in French playing a predominant role in Morocco, Sekari will offer a more localised Search Marketing approach, ensuring the successful delivery of high search engine rankings for Mazagan even in traditionally competitive UK and French markets.

Soukaina Al Baraka, Online Manager at Mazagan Beach Resort, commented on the new partnership, "As Sekari are dedicated specialists in natural search both in the MENA region and with prominent hospitality brands, we felt they were best placed to provide our site with a competitive edge against the major players in the MENA region".

ENDS

About SEKARI
Sekari is the Middle East's leading dedicated digital search and social optimisation agency. The company has an international reach with a network of 15 partners around the world enabling the delivery of cutting edge global Digital Search & Social Marketing services in any language. Sekari places digital search marketing at the very heart of its clients' marketing strategies, and is the only agency in the region that deals exclusively in Search Engine Optimisation as well as Social Media Monitoring. Sekari combines the very best in technological expertise with years of local and regional experience to deliver the most competitive performance for its customers. For more information on Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Google Pay-Per-Click, Social Media Optimisation, Social Media Monitoring, and Social Media Marketing, please visit http://www.sekari.com/seo

For further media information from Sekari, please contact:

Office 2804, BB1 Tower
Mazaya Business Avenue
Dubai, UAE
T: +971 4 434 2816
F: +971 4 434 2801
Mob: +971 50 852 4611
Email: info@sekari.com

Where Panda aimed at lowering the rank of "low quality" sites panelising keyword stuffing, directory listings and link building with spam directories, Google Freshness looks to give searchers the latest information. The update gives users the most up to date information as well as news that may only be seconds old. For example, a search for a mobile phone will result in the latest iteration of the newest model rather than displaying older content.

Both changes have been a long time in coming after Google Caffeine in 2010 which was a complete infrastructure change which allows Google to index, crawl and return results incredibly fast. Google claims that unlike Panda, which only affected about 12% of all search queries, Google Freshness will have an effect on over 30% of all searches - close to 35% of all searches.

Google Freshness also gives the algorithm the ability to look ahead and follow recurring events, like UAE National Day or a yearly Iftar event and delivers the results of the most recent recurrence. Previously the older occurrences would have returned better results.

Quality and Frequency will be the mantra for SEO in 2012. Therefore, providing better quality content and frequently updating it to make sure the content is up to date will ultimately generate results.

Where 2011 saw an increase in Social indicators, 2012 merges your website and social platforms into one big engagement pot. SEO Agencies need to have ways to create engaging content for their clients or for distribution, they need to have expertise in outreach, they need to be able to work with mobile sites and help optimise apps for web and app-store discovery.

The standing of traditional SEO loses value in 2012 as it becomes a commodity, widespread amongst Design & Build Agencies. If your Web Developer doesn't understand On-Page SEO, then frankly he shouldn't be developing your site.

The modern SEO Dubai agency will not fall into the trap of procurement lead pitches which devolve into itemised deliverables which have no real meaning, but are easy to quantify for the purchasing manager, "this agency will deliver x number of links at this budget per link can you deliver 2 more links for the same price". Continuously bidding lower and lower costs means less availability of time and effort required for the ground breaking thinking required for true innovation.

Modern Arabic SEO has the same challenges and would do well to appeal to these recent updates, like Panda, Freshness, and engage in delivering social signals. However, the need for fresh quality Arabic content becomes ever more important and is still the biggest challenge present for SEO in the region.

However, this often means that digital strategies which can't provide instantaneous results and require time to demonstrate results are simply overlooked. SEO or natural search engine optimization often falls into this category. One of the most difficult things in SEO is justifying the return of investment instantly. This is unlike PPC activity where ROI can be measured immediately, with sales reported in real time. SEO however, requires a longer, more strategic process and is difficult to provide guarantees owing to the varying nature of the search engine algorithms.

Despite this, in our experience, search engine optimisation still proves itself as the top source of traffic and conversions for our clients and needs to be a core part of any holistic marketing strategy.

To further support our conclusion, Webarketing123 have published their latest study from their 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report. This report was a product of their online survey conducted in September 2011 with 500 professionals completing the survey.

With both B2B and B2C industries, SEO has topped PPC and Social Media in lead generation. Even if lead generation goals are dependent on several factors such as click-through factors and landing page optimisation, SEO is proven to be a long-term and stable strategy across a brand's digital marketing efforts.

Naturally, marketers will always invest more in in channels that deliver the highest ROI. However, other marketing channels such as Social Media are on the rise for budget attention in the next year to come.

With Dubai roads bursting at the seams during rush hour, it is easy to recognise the importance of a car in the eyes of the Emirate's growing population. With the cost of fuel at a relatively low level, the upkeep and running of a car in the UAE makes owning one an economical and desirable choice. However, with 4x4s a common site in the region, are they really the popular choice of automobile, and what are people saying about the brand of car that they own or dream of owning?

In the UAE, top search volumes involving car manufacturers and brands show that the term ‘mini' is in fact the most popular search query, achieving more search queries than ‘Toyota' and ‘Honda' put together. This indicates the rising popularity for the British Premium Car brand in the region and is perhaps testament to the brand's growing presence in the region with the launch of its All-Wheel drive, the Mini Countryman.

In terms of social media buzz and online conversation, Mercedes lead the way in terms of mentions in the social media sphere. However, the sentiment recorded here is zero, with the brand generating neutral conversations on the whole. BMW and Ferrari follow closely behind with brand mentions in September nearly reaching 350 each. However, Ferrari leads the whole group by far in terms of positive sentiment scoring. With mentions referring to happenings in the world of F1 or the tourist attraction Ferrari World, it's clear to see this kind of conversation creates a highly positive stir across the social media platforms.

Honda and Toyota trail the group with the most negative sentiment scoring of the group. Honda failed to rouse a positive response about its servicing capabilities, with a negative buzz also generated around the terms of ‘faulty' and ‘recalls'. Toyota's problem mainly originates from global corporation news, as opposed to general feelings about its car models and their performance.

What is clear is the failure of tweets and blogs to refer positively to the experience of their own car that is used day in, day out. Social media adopters tend to tweet about the cars they aspire to own or the sporting interest that the brand represents. Those brands generating such a positive buzz online successfully affiliate themselves with sponsorship opportunities that generate their very own community offline, whilst bringing the brand alive online in a positive conversational tone.

Social Media - Volume Vs Sentiment Graph

With more than 60 major shopping malls in Dubai alone, including what is purportedly the world's largest mall, the retail sector in the emirate has never been so competitive. Retailers, therefore, are now moving online in a bid to spread their brand message further afield to help increase footfall and become the favoured Dubai shopping experience.

In the UAE, top searches tend to centre around generic terms, with few mall names or specific retailers mentioned. The only to malls making the top 20 popular search terms are 'Dubai mall' and 'mall of the emirates'.

Interestingly, online shopping is beginning to emerge as a popular search term as web users opt for an in-home shopping experience.

Dubai Mall is by far the most talked about brand in the social media sphere. It also boasts the highest sentiment scoring. Most mentions of the brand are positive, with enthusiastic comments about its impressive features of the mall such as the water fountains and the aquarium.

Additional buzz has also been created around celebrities set to visit the mall. For example, Kim Kardashian's pending personal appearance is much anticipated, as is the opening of the Christian Laboutin store.

Again, with the other malls mentioned often on social media platforms, the majority of the buzz is created around the additional features of the mall which often don't include shopping activities. Ski Dubai, for example, is commonly referred to when mentioning Mall of the Emirates, as is the spa when discussing Wafi mall.

Surprisingly, for one of the larger and perhaps busier malls, Deira City Centre fails to make an impact amongst the social media-savvy demographic. Mentions that can be picked up are neutral in tone and refer to general visits or cinema trips.

Few mentions of individual retails outlets are made. Perhaps this demonstrates the growing popularity of non-shopping-focused activities available at shopping centres today, indicating the evolution of malls from being a purely shopping-based experience to a form of entertainment for the whole family.

Download Original PDF

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (18th December, 2011):

Dubai Airport Freezone, one of the fastest growing premium free zones in the region has appointed Sekari as its Dubai SEO partner to guide its organic search strategy throughout the region.

Currently home to over 1,450 companies from various industry sectors, including aviation, IT and pharmaceuticals, Dubai Airport Freezone is ideally located within the boundaries of Dubai International Airport, offering a range of modern facilities with a state-of-the-art infrastructure. International investors can enjoy dynamic growth through Dubai Airport Freezone's excellent packages which provide innovative technology and support to engage their various stakeholders.

As dedicated SEO experts in the region, Sekari was the obvious partner of choice to guide Dubai Airport Freezone's SEO strategy, to build on its online presence whilst ultimately attracting more businesses to the modern free zone.

Sekari will deliver a localised Organic Search Optimisation Strategy for Dubai Airport Freezone for English language searches in the region. Sekari's holistic approach to devising highly effective SEO campaigns involves in-depth competitor analysis and benchmarking, along with a full technical site audit. The success of the campaign can then be fully measured based on core KPIs established at the start of the campaign.

Jamal Bin Marghoob, Acting Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications, commented on the new partnership, "As innovative leaders in our industry, we required a partnership with a like-minded agency to lead our global organic search strategy. Sekari understood our objectives and are able to deliver tangible results driving search engine ranking in many languages and countries around the world, highlighting the true value of SEO and ensuring the tactic becomes a core part of our overall digital marketing strategy".

ENDS

About Dubai Airport Freezone

Established in 1996 as a part of the Dubai Government's strategic plan to be an investment driven economy, Dubai Airport Freezone is one of the fastest growing premium free zones in the region. The free zone is currently home to over 1450 companies from various industry sectors, including aviation, freight and logistics, IT and telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, engineering, food & beverage, jewellery and cosmetics. Located strategically within the boundaries of Dubai International Airport, Dubai Airport Freezone offers a range of modern facilities with a state-of-the-art infrastructure.

International investors can enjoy dynamic growth through Dubai Airport Freezone's excellent incentive packages including 100% tax exemption, 100% foreign ownership and no currency restrictions. Situated at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, the Dubai Airport Freezone is a gateway providing access to over 2.5 billion consumers.

Dubai Airport Freezone's commitment to quality is recognized by worldwide ISO certificates for Quality, Environment, Health & Safety and Information Security Management System, as well as Complaints Handling System. In addition to various regional and international awards, Dubai Airport Freezone has won the prestigious Dubai Quality Appreciation Programme award in the service category in 2010.

For more information contact:

Tooba Zafar                                                                        

BPG Public Relations for Dubai Airport Freezone               

Dubai, United Arab Emirates                                           

Tel: +971 55 6796346                                                  

Email: tooba@batespangulf.com                                 

Salah El Din El Tayeb

Sr. Officer, Corporate Communications

Dubai Airport Freezone

United Arab Emirates

Tel: +971 4 202 7717/+971 50 6561433

Email: saltayeb@dafz.ae

About SEKARI

Sekari is the Middle East's leading dedicated digital search and social optimisation agency. The company has an international reach with a network of 15 partners around the world enabling the delivery of cutting edge global Digital Search & Social Marketing services in any language. Sekari places digital search marketing at the very heart of its clients' marketing strategies, and is the only agency in the region that deals exclusively in Search Engine Optimisation as well as Social Media Monitoring.  Sekari combines the very best in technological expertise with years of local and regional experience to deliver the most competitive performance for its customers.  For more information on Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Google Pay-Per-Click, Social Media Optimisation, Social Media Monitoring, and Social Media Marketing, please visit http://www.sekari.com/seo

For further media information from Sekari, please contact:

Office 2804, BB1 Tower
Mazaya Business Avenue
Dubai, UAE

T: +971 4 434 2816
F: +971 4 434 2801
Mob: +971 50 852 4611

Email: info@sekari.com

The early morning seminar at The Address hotel in Dubai Mall is surprisingly well attended by small-to-medium business heads and corporate marketers. The reason why is simple: whenever any of us want to find out anything, we simply "Google it" by typing in a couple of keywords. Those keywords bring up a list of results and it's where a business appears on that list that counts. Get your website on the first page of that search and you have a very good chance of having your link clicked onto - the top link receives a 42.4 per cent hit rate, the second listing 11.8 per cent and the third 8.4 per cent.

Read the full article in The National

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (9 August, 2011): The buzz around social media in the Middle East is at fever pitch. Whilst many brands are grappling with the issues of how to engage in social media and manage their reputations, little mention has been given to how important a role Social Media Optimisation plays in a company's website ranking in search engines. There are two sides to this story, however, the first is how social media content plays an ever increasing role in the Google's ranking algorithm, the other is how by optimising your social media profiles and content with the right key phrases you can ensure that the first page of the Search Engine results are completely owned by your brand.

'Universal Search' is the terminology given to how the Google Search Engine Results page is nowadays made up of Google maps results, live twitter feeds, News Articles, YouTube video, and images. In order for your Social Media content to rank well, you need to make sure that all your social media content is optimised for the same key phrases which are part of your SEO strategy, ensuring a coordinated holistic approach across all your platforms. It's not simply a case of ensuring your social media ranks for your brand name, it's about being visible for the key phrases people type in search engines when looking for your products or services and then making sure that your offering is the first one these potential customers click on, whether it's a video of your services, your latest Twitter feed or your company Facebook page.

"A consistent approach across all platforms is the trick. As an SEO agency we research what these key phrases should be, we use various sources of data to decide on the most valuable key phrase strategy for your brand's website. The amount of searches for a particular key phrase is an important starting point, your company might be called Rose Trading but if you sell fashion accessories then we need to find out what people are searching for in the UAE when they are looking for somewhere to buy your type of products", explains Managing Director of SEO Dubai Agency, Sekari. And in the Middle East, which is still relatively in its infancy when it comes to Search, these are more commonly broad generic phrases. In the case of the fashion accessories company these would be phrases such as Dresses, Jewellery, Fashion Stores. These same key phrases need to be infused in all your social media content. For example your target key phrases should be referenced in the titles of your YouTube videos so that any authority is passed onto your website URL, those same keywords should also be in the tags and or transcript.

All these factors build the relevant authority of your website in the eyes of search engines and at the same time ensure that whenever someone types in a search for those key phrases, that the results page is littered not only with your website but all your social media assets as well, from your video, your Facebook page to your latest Twitter feeds.

But social media optimisation is not simply about ensuring your various social media profiles rank high for your target key phrases, nowadays the optimisation and usage of your social media profile plays an important part in search engines deciding how your own website ranks.

According to our research at SEKARI a number of social media factors play a role in your websites Search Engine Rankings.

Twitter

The number and the quality of your twitter followers.
Simply explained; the more followers you have, the more authoritative your twitter persona and the more value associated with your URL.

Quality and Relevance as always in SEO plays a vital role. Followers with their own communities of followers, which re-tweet your content and follow you are the best. But these followers have to be relevant to your specific industry as using your relevant target keywords. Someone with fashion in their description who re-tweet's your latest clothing promotion provides your website considerable value.

Being in the game means staying active and volume plays a very important role. The way search engines see it is the number of people re-tweeting your content the more authoritative the content must be. The more followers you have the more likely you are to be re-tweeted. But remember it's not just about tweeting and being re-tweeted, it's about engaging in conversation with people in your industry.

And guess what? It's not just all about Twitter either.

Facebook

For example the number of comments on your Corporate Profile Facebook page is an indicator to search engines, however, too many 'Likes' and not much real engagement is a sure sign of the system being gamed. Make sure your Facebook page is optimised for your target key phrases.

It's also worth mentioning Social Mentions, total visibility across all social media shows that your content is important to all people and not just the result of a good promotion on Facebook, especially in the Middle East, where there are a lot of blogs and forums. Sekari use monitoring tools that enable us to capture all these mentions and we can identify how positive or negative the comments are about your brand, using this as a starting point to making sure there are more positive mentions about your brand then negative. The general sentiment expressed about your brand will start playing a pivotal role in search engine rankings. Google is investing more money in this area and it will really start to have a major effect in the near future with search results becoming ever more localised and personalised, the results you get when you search for something will be determined by your personal preferences, associated with that of your connections, your friends and what they search for.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (20 June, 2011): Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, the global hospitality brand, has commenced working with Sekari to develop their SEO strategy throughout the Middle East and Africa. With 11 properties already in the region including UAE properties, The Fairmont Dubai; and Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi, as well as another five properties opening in the next couple of years, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, as part of their regional brand expansion, have recently launched an Arabic website www.fairmont.ae. Local Search and Social Optimisation Agency - Sekari, have been appointed by Fairmont's global digital marketing agency, the award-winning iCrossing, to support the digital implementation of the SEO strategy throughout the region and develop their online brand awareness.

Search marketing is becoming increasingly important in the Middle East and Africa as local search habits develop: In the Middle East there are 63 million Internet users with 45.9 million Internet users searching in Arabic, of which 9 million Internet users located outside the MENA region search in Arabic. According to Google approximately 74% of Internet searches in the Middle East are now made in Arabic (according to Madar Research).

Africa has enormous potential out of a population of 1.013 billion, 110.9 million are online, equating to approximately 11% with an internet adoption growth rate of 2,357% in the past 10 years (source: Internet World Stats). Since the installation of the 10,000 KM fibre-optic cable linking Africa with the Middle East, Europe and Asia, broadband rates have dropped by over 90% in Africa creating a surge in Internet adoption rates.

Sekari will deliver the Arabic Organic Optimisation Strategy for the Arabic website and with search in English playing a predominant role in the region Sekari will deliver a more localised Search Marketing approach; the benefits of which deliver better local results in Google whenever people are searching for luxury hotels. By ranking on the first page in the organic results, companies can achieve up to 80% more traffic from search engines, and these are all qualified leads which increase a business's online conversion rates.

As Sekari are dedicated specialists in search and social we have a competitive edge against any others in the region. Combining technical excellence in the art of SEO with our tangible regional experience enables us to achieve the very best performance for our clients.

Experience

An SEO agency has experts that work next to one another on a daily basis and have years of SEO experience, working on a multitude of different clients across different industry verticals. First-class SEO is a learned practice and a great SEO team benefits from the combined learning gained through all its members by sitting next to each other and sharing in each other's experiences of a wide selection of clients. An SEO agency will have a team of many different skill sets from SEO technicians, to keyword analytics experts, SEO Copywriters to Link Builders and content aggregation experts, whose knowledge combine to offer an integrated SEO service with expertise in each individual field of SEO.

Specialism

Hiring an SEO specialist agency ensures that you're dealing with true experts in their field.  A web designer may have some idea about SEO and to be quite honest a lot of SEO isn't rocket science, however, as with anyone having to maintain their knowledge across different disciplines it is impossible to know everything.  Whereas someone who only specialises in the one discipline of SEO has far more time to dedicate to their one profession.  20% of a good SEO companies time should be spent researching new SEO techniques and identifying the latest innovations.  SEO is often a case of trial and error with some techniques working better than others to rank a particular website.  It's a lot of time, experience and dedication.

Independence

Your SEO agency should act as an independent point of view, providing the best practice and critically analysing your website with no pre-conceptions or fear of recrimination for identifying errors in the way a website is built.  

Long Term Partnership

An SEO agency works as your marketing partner, riding the highs and lows but always there to provide you with expert SEO knowledge and support.  Every time you do something online, whether it's changing some copy on your website or developing a new online campaign, your SEO agency should be your first port of call, enabling you to put your SEO cap on and consider how your activity can benefit your websites SEO or if any changes will be detrimental and result in losing rankings.  So many opportunities to build your website equity in search engines are missed because simple yet effective opportunities where not thought of at the time of conception.

So you need to make sure you work with an SEO company that is going to be around for a long while, over time the SEO agency can build an in-depth and innate understanding of your brand and your website.  You need good, no great, proactive and knowledgeable account management, which only a well funded SEO agency can provide, to keep projects on track and to make sure you can get quick accurate answers which won’t delay your campaigns.

Choosing the most technically advanced, effective and efficient supplier for your SEO services is paramount if you want a chance to compete in this highly competitive medium.

In this article SEKARI tries to dispel a few of the myths and give some guidelines on what you should be looking out for when choosing an SEO agency.

Realistic Expectations

The most important thing to remember is that SEO is not a quick fix, the reality is that in order to start seeing good results from your SEO efforts it can take up to six months of hard work.  A reputable SEO agency will work closely with you providing quick wins as well as long term Organic SEO strategies and identify realistic targets and KPI's, ensuring they are not just delivering traffic but real people that want your products or services. 

Guaranteeing 1st Place

No respectable agency would ever guarantee first place, usually this is a promise reserved for the spammers of this world.

Don't expect immediate results and make sure all key stakeholders understand that you're website is not going to be in first place one week after hiring the SEO company, however good they profess to be. A true organic SEO campaign will take time and rely on many deliverables from both client and agency side before the search engines even begin to start recognising and indexing the new content and your site starts to move up the rankings.

SEO Best Practice

Make sure your SEO agency does not use what SEO'rs like to call ‘Black Hat’ techniques, or simply put, methods that spam search engines; something that the search engines really don't like.  It happened to the management of BMW in 2006, when unbeknownst to them their SEO agency was gaining fast results by spamming and ignoring search engine guidelines and best practice. They saw some great results in the short term but in the end the site was completely banned from search engines and it took a long, long time for them to get back up the rankings, losing the company millions of dollars worth of brand exposure.

SEO Reporting

An SEO agency should provide fully comprehensive reporting on a regular basis because Search Engines are dynamic and rankings change continuously.  A correct SEO campaign should start with an initial Research and Analysis phase followed by an ongoing monthly phase where the SEO agency works with you month by month delivering and supporting your SEO activities including continuous link building, backed up by monthly benchmark reports.

Multilingual & Localisation for UAE SEO

If you are an international company looking to market your website locally in the Middle East, you need to make sure that you hire a team of SEO experts that can cover a multitude of different languages, not forgetting localised versions of these languages such as Arabic.  You need to make sure that the keyword research and the various tools that run the competitive analysis are run from that country to emulate the results of the local audience.  Many SEO companies simply rely on translators to copy the English Key phrases and translate them word for word, and don't conduct the multilingual SEO research individually in that language, which inevitably results in inaccurate data.  This is equally important for a company targeting countries in the Middle East for example, UAE based SEO. With 75% of Google searches in the region taking place in Arabic, localised Arabic SEO is growing in importance and as such Arabic SEO experts are invaluable in providing solid multilingual SEO across the region.

Transparency

A common misconception is that SEO is all about secret tricks and techniques which the client shouldn't really know about, some form of magic which web developers sprinkle their SEO fairy dust on to a website to make it special.  This couldn’t be further from the truth, you must make sure you have full access to the progress of your work and have explained to you, the techniques used that get the results.  A good SEO agency will give you detailed reports and will impart their knowledge to you, they should even provide SEO training if you require it.  After all the more the client understands about SEO, the better the working relationship will be, inevitably producing better results.

SEO Contracting

Many SEO companies will tie you down to a set contract of 6 months to a year with penalties for breaking the contract terms.  This is quite a common practice as it usually takes about 6 months to start seeing results and the majority of the spending by the SEO agency is done at the beginning of the contract to gain momentum in search engines. Therefore this practice protects the agency from a company that doesn’t understand the long term dynamics of the work and gives the SEO company enough time to deliver results. 

Atlantis, The Palm Hotel & Resort, part of Kerzner International Resorts today announced their strategic initiative to increase the hotel’s web presence and reach out to the rapidly expanding global online audience with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & online marketing specialists Sekari.

"It's a great vote of confidence in our international SEO services and in the online medium as a whole that a brand such as The Atlantis Palm Hotel Dubai should take advantage of Sekari's unique specialist expertise to develop its international online organic SEO strategy", says Sekari General Manager, Lee Mancini. Sekari, a specialist SEO company based in Dubai is entrusted with developing an aggressive 360 SEO campaign in English, Russian and Arabic which will ensure that the hotel located on Palm Island will increase its brand profile and provide its audience with relevant timely information.

"Increasing the profile and organic positioning of the Atlantis The Palm website as part of our online strategy is a critical part of our wider strategy to increase our digital footprint with key audiences. In building traffic to our website, we will increase our competitive edge and ultimately increasing bookings", said Euan Mitchell, Director of Online Marketing, Atlantisthepalm.com, he continued, "Sekari is not only concentrating on our international source markets such as the United Kingdom, and Russia by performing SEO in Russian, however, they are also concentrating on the local market by working on the performance in the UAE in English and wider MENA region in Arabic for the hotel, our restaurants and of course Aquaventure and the Dolphinarium.

”Sekari starts with comprehensive research and analysis (R&A) in the hotel & resort online market which is localised per target language and country which provides the competitive data and keyphrase research required to develop an organic SEO marketing strategy. Running parallel to the R&A Phase technical site audits are developed by Sekari's expert technical SEO team in Dubai, UAE. The technical audits are designed to identify barriers to the way search engines view the content of the website and delve deep into the websites infrastructure and coding. This ensures a true 360 degree Organic SEO strategy which is then delivered on a continuous basis every month, developing online partnerships, utilising online PR & social media as well as delivering other SEO innovations which help boost the sites performance. "The approach of our Dubai SEO team is to become a fully-fledged partner for our clients becoming an integrated part of their success by delivering qualified traffic that converts into bookings or sales, said Mancini. “An integral part of this value delivery is that our analytics team can continuously track the performance and uplift in ranking, highlighting the huge ROI that our projects deliver full circle, through customer acquisition, conversion and retention.”

* Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Note to Editors:

Middle East Internet Penetration Rates

The Middle East region has one of the fastest growing Internet penetration rates in the world with 18.9 Million Arab users online today (Not Including Iran) and growth rates over the past few years of 3,000% in countries such as The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As this medium becomes ever more proficient, brands and agencies are beginning to have to take notice of these new captive and enthusiastic audiences. Penetration rates fluctuate between 10% and 60% throughout the region with the UAE having the highest Internet penetration rate, 60.9% as of 2009. However, even though The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a small internet penetration rate of approximately 26.8% at present, the growth rate phenomenal and with KSA having the largest population in the GCC, this still results in over 7.7 million Internet Users. With 50% of The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia's population being under 20 years old it is clear that the enormous future potential of this new young population represents a massive commercial opportunity.

Your browser may not support display of this image.

While users have been reluctant to click on ads, brands are still looking for ways to leverage the social networking space and finding them.

Facebook and other social networking sites are providing opportunities for brand marketers to get feedback from users and even sometimes engage in direct conversations.

In the Middle East usage is growing fast, showing that there is an ever increasing opportunity for social media in the region.

The latest Facebook figures show considerable numbers with the GCC and Levant region.

• Lebanon: 377,000 users
• Morocco: 199,000 users
• United Arab Emirates: 386,000 users
• Turkey: 4,000,000 users
• Qatar: 51,000 users
• Saudi Arabia: 250,000 users
• Kuwait: 85,000 users
• Bahrain: 41,380 users
• Egypt: 841,000 users
• Jordan: 213,400 users

There has been a huge amount of wild speculation flying around the blogosphere over the last few weeks, fueled my Matt Cutts’ cryptic announcements about the contents and implementation date of the Penguin update. You can tell when people are grasping at straws when articles focus on whether the update is Penguin 2.0 or Penguin 4 rather than the meat of what the update involves.

We have resisted the urge to comment on what may be about to happen and who it might affect, although we have of course been discussing it at length internally. With more information being drip-fed almost on a daily basis, the issue became more clouded rather than more factual, but that’s to be expected, as clearly it makes good sense for Google to leave out the details, so as not to forewarn the very people they are trying to penalize. The summary is always the same though; create only real content and you’ll be fine.

Historically, search algorithm updates have taken longer to apply to Arabic websites and have been less effective, but according to Matt Cutts’ statement, the algorithm has been rolled out across non-English websites already and languages with a high amount of webspam are likely to be effected more.

Our approach remains ‘watch and learn’ while the effects start to become apparent and the data becomes clearer as more is gathered by more sources. We are of course keeping a closer eye on our monitoring tools than is routine, our professional curiosity is in overdrive and there is certain to be some tweaking in our strategies and techniques over the coming weeks and months. It definitely looks like being an interesting summer.

-------------

About The Author - Lee Mancini is Managing Director at Sekari Dubai, driving integrated social search results for clients in the Middle East.