
The UAE’s e-commerce landscape is booming, with revenues projected to reach upwards of US$17 billion by 2025. For businesses aiming to capture this lucrative market, visibility on Google is non-negotiable. Yet, a critical technical layer is often mismanaged or ignored entirely for Arabic-language stores: structured data. Incorrectly implemented schema markup doesn’t just prevent you from getting rich snippets; it actively confuses search engines and hinders your site’s ability to appear in Google’s AI Overviews. Common Arabic schema issues can make your site nearly invisible for high-intent transactional queries.
At KalaGrafix, our technical SEO team, led by founder Deepak Bisht, has audited countless e-commerce sites across the MENA region. We consistently find the same critical errors related to Right-to-Left (RTL) text direction, currency formatting, and regional targeting that silently sabotage SEO performance. This guide will dissect these common problems and provide a clear, actionable framework to fix them, ensuring your Arabic online store communicates flawlessly with search engines.
Quick Answer: Common Arabic Schema Issues
Arabic schema issues are critical errors in structured data markup that prevent search engines from correctly understanding Arabic e-commerce websites. According to industry data, over 60% of multilingual sites have some form of structured data error, with RTL language sites being particularly vulnerable. The most common problems are: 1. Failure to declare Right-to-Left (RTL) text direction, causing jumbled snippets. 2. Incorrect currency formatting (e.g., using “AED” vs. “د.إ” improperly). 3. Vague regional targeting, which fails to specify product availability for the UAE market.
Table of Contents
- Why Structured Data is the Bedrock of Arabic E-commerce SEO
- The Top 5 Arabic Schema Issues Sabotaging Your UAE Rankings
- A Step-by-Step Guide to Auditing and Fixing Arabic Schema
- The Future is Structured: AI Overviews and the Arabic Semantic Web
- About KalaGrafix & Founder Deepak Bisht
- Related Digital Marketing Services
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why Structured Data is the Bedrock of Arabic E-commerce SEO
Before we dive into the errors, let’s establish why this matters so much. Structured data, specifically Schema.org vocabulary, is a standardized language you add to your website’s code. It doesn’t change how the page looks to a user, but it provides explicit context to search crawlers. Instead of Google guessing that “د.إ 1,299” is a price, you use schema to state definitively: “This is an offer, the currency is AED, and the price is 1299.”
For an Arabic e-commerce site in the UAE, this has profound implications:
- Rich Snippets: This is the most visible benefit. Correct schema enables star ratings, pricing, and availability information to appear directly in the search results, dramatically increasing click-through rates (CTR).
- Google AI Overviews & Voice Search: Google’s AI-driven answers and voice assistants rely heavily on structured data to provide direct, factual answers. If a user in Dubai asks, “أين يمكنني شراء آيفون 15 بالتقسيط؟” (Where can I buy an iPhone 15 in installments?), Google will prioritize sites that have clearly structured their product, offer, and payment information.
- Enhanced Merchant Center Feeds: For businesses using Google Shopping, accurate schema on your product pages helps validate the data in your Merchant Center feed, reducing disapprovals and ensuring your ads are shown with correct information.
- Improved Entity Understanding: Proper schema helps Google build a stronger, more accurate profile of your brand, products, and services in its Knowledge Graph. This is foundational for long-term authority and topical relevance.
Ignoring schema is like asking a librarian to categorize a book with a blank cover. They might get it right by reading the whole thing, but it’s inefficient and prone to error. Giving Google structured data is like handing them a perfectly filled-out library card—it ensures fast, accurate indexing every time.
The Top 5 Arabic Schema Issues Sabotaging Your UAE Rankings
From our experience at KalaGrafix, the vast majority of schema problems on Arabic websites fall into a few key categories. These aren’t just minor validation warnings; they are fundamental communication breakdowns with Google. Here are the five most common culprits we encounter.
Issue 1: Mishandling Right-to-Left (RTL) Text Direction
This is arguably the most pervasive and damaging issue. While the visible text on your website is RTL, the underlying JSON-LD schema script is often generated without consideration for text directionality. This leads to broken or jumbled rich snippets where Arabic and Latin characters (like brand names or model numbers) are displayed in a confusing, left-to-right order.
How to Fix It:
The solution is conceptually simple but requires careful implementation. Within your JSON-LD, especially for properties like "name" and "description", you should encapsulate the Arabic text within Unicode control characters or, more robustly, ensure your CMS and schema generation tools are configured to handle RTL content properly. While JSON-LD itself doesn’t have a `dir=”rtl”` attribute like HTML, the content you feed into it must be correctly encoded.
Issue 2: Incorrect Currency and Pricing Formatting
In the UAE, prices are often displayed with the Arabic symbol “د.إ”. However, the Schema.org standard for the priceCurrency property requires the 3-letter ISO 4217 code. We frequently see sites either omitting the currency property or using the symbol instead of the code.
How to Fix It:
priceCurrency: Always use"AED". Do not use “د.إ” or “Dirham”.price: This property should contain only the numerical value, without currency symbols or thousands separators. For example, a price of 1,299.50 should be represented as"1299.50".
Correct Example:
"offers": {
"@type": "Offer",
"priceCurrency": "AED",
"price": "1299.50",
...
}
Issue 3: Vague or Missing Regional Targeting
An e-commerce site serving the UAE needs to tell Google explicitly that its products and offers are valid for customers in that country. Generic schema often misses this nuance, which is a missed opportunity to rank for location-based queries like “buy laptop in Dubai”.
How to Fix It:
Utilize the areaServed property within your Offer schema. You can specify the country directly. For an even more granular approach, you can use the shippingDetails property to define shipping rates and regions.
Correct Example:
"offers": {
"@type": "Offer",
"areaServed": {
"@type": "Country",
"name": "United Arab Emirates",
"iso3166": "AE"
},
...
}
Issue 4: Neglecting Arabic-Specific `PropertyValue` Pairs
Products in the MENA region often have specific attributes that aren’t common elsewhere, such as clothing sizes, electronic specifications (e.g., plug types), or Halal certifications. Many developers use generic schema, failing to mark up these crucial, region-specific details.
How to Fix It:
Use the additionalProperty property, which is of type PropertyValue, to define these custom attributes. This allows you to give Google specific name-value pairs that accurately describe your product for the local market.
Correct Example for a food product:
"additionalProperty": [{
"@type": "PropertyValue",
"name": "شهادة الحلال",
"value": "نعم"
}]
Issue 5: Using Generic Schema Types Instead of Granular Ones
It’s easy to mark up every item on your store as a generic Product. However, Schema.org has a rich hierarchy of more specific types. Using Shoe instead of Product, or Vehicle instead of Product, gives search engines much more precise information, which is invaluable for long-tail search queries.
How to Fix It:
Audit your product categories and map them to the most specific Schema.org type available. A simple search on the official Schema.org website can reveal dozens of opportunities to be more precise. This simple change can significantly improve your relevance for niche product searches.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Auditing and Fixing Arabic Schema
Fixing these issues requires a systematic approach. At KalaGrafix, our process, refined by our founder Deepak Bisht, combines AI-powered tools with deep technical expertise to ensure nothing is missed. Here’s a simplified version of our workflow you can adapt.
Step 1: Comprehensive Crawl and Schema Extraction
Use tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl your entire website. Configure the crawler to extract JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa. This gives you a complete inventory of all structured data currently implemented on your site, template by template.
Step 2: Validation Against Google’s Standards
Take the extracted schema from key pages (homepage, product pages, category pages) and run it through Google’s Schema Markup Validator and Rich Results Test. This will catch syntax errors and warnings. However, remember that validation tools won’t catch logical errors like incorrect currency codes or lack of RTL handling. This is where manual review is critical.
Step 3: Manual RTL and Localization Audit
This is the most crucial step for Arabic sites. Manually inspect the schema for each of the top 5 issues mentioned above. Check product names and descriptions for RTL integrity. Verify that all prices use “AED”. Ensure regional targeting is present. Look for opportunities to add specific PropertyValue pairs. This human-led, expert review is what separates a basic audit from a truly effective one.
Step 4: Prioritize and Implement Fixes
Create a prioritized list of fixes. Site-wide template issues (like incorrect currency in the product schema) should be the top priority. Work with your development team to deploy the updated JSON-LD scripts. For platforms like Shopify or Magento, this may involve editing theme files or using specialized apps. Consider using Google Tag Manager to dynamically inject or modify schema as a more agile solution.
Step 5: Monitor and Iterate
After deploying the fixes, use Google Search Console to monitor your performance. Check the “Enhancements” reports (e.g., Products, Review snippets) for any new errors or trends. A sudden increase in valid items is a great sign. Keep an eye on your CTR for key product pages to see if the improved rich snippets are having an impact.
The Future is Structured: AI Overviews and the Arabic Semantic Web
The push for accurate structured data goes far beyond just getting star ratings in search results. The entire trajectory of search, from Google’s AI Overviews to voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant, is built on a foundation of structured, machine-readable information.
When a user performs a complex, conversational search in Arabic, Google’s AI models are not “reading” your website in the traditional sense. They are querying the semantic web—a web of data—and your schema is your website’s primary contribution to that dataset. Websites with precise, comprehensive, and error-free structured data will be the primary sources for these AI-generated answers. Their content will be featured, their products recommended, and their brand established as an authority.
For businesses in the UAE, this presents a pivotal opportunity. By mastering Arabic schema now, you are not just optimizing for today’s search results; you are future-proofing your digital presence. You are ensuring that as search becomes more intelligent and conversational, your business is providing the clean, structured data that these new systems crave. This is how you build a lasting competitive advantage in the digital-first economy of the Middle East.
Why Trust KalaGrafix with Your Arabic E-commerce SEO?
Navigating the technical complexities of multilingual SEO, especially in the Arabic market, requires more than just standard practices. It demands a nuanced understanding of cultural context, linguistic challenges, and the specific technical hurdles like the ones detailed in this article. At KalaGrafix, we specialize in this intersection of technology and culture.
Our approach, spearheaded by founder and AI SEO Strategist Deepak Bisht, is built on a foundation of data-driven analysis and cutting-edge implementation. We don’t just apply generic SEO checklists. We conduct deep-dive audits to uncover the unique challenges and opportunities for your business in markets like the UAE and Dubai. Our team blends human expertise with AI-powered tools to not only fix technical issues but to build a robust, future-proof SEO strategy that drives sustainable growth. We understand that success in the UAE market is about communicating with both your customers and the search engines flawlessly.
Explore Our Core Digital Marketing Services
Driving e-commerce success requires a holistic strategy. Fixing your schema is a critical first step, but it’s most powerful when integrated with a comprehensive digital marketing plan. Learn more about how our expert services can amplify your results.
- Comprehensive SEO Services: Go beyond schema with our full-suite SEO solutions, covering everything from technical audits and content strategy to link building and performance analytics.
- Website Development Services: Ensure your digital storefront is built on a solid foundation. Our web development team creates fast, secure, and SEO-friendly e-commerce sites optimized for global markets.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is schema markup and why is it important for my Arabic website?
Schema markup is a form of code (structured data) that you add to your website to help search engines like Google understand your content more effectively. For an Arabic website, it’s crucial because it allows you to explicitly define information like product prices in AED, reviews, and business details, which helps you earn rich snippets in search results and become eligible for Google’s AI Overviews, significantly boosting visibility and CTR.
How do I test my Arabic structured data for errors?
You can use Google’s official “Rich Results Test” and the “Schema Markup Validator” tools. Simply enter your URL or code snippet. These tools will show you syntax errors and warnings. However, they won’t catch logical errors specific to Arabic, such as incorrect currency symbols or RTL display issues, which require a manual expert audit.
Does Google support Arabic in rich results?
Yes, absolutely. Google fully supports Arabic content in its search results and can display various types of rich results, such as product ratings, prices, and FAQs, for Arabic websites. However, this is contingent on your schema markup being implemented correctly and free of the common errors discussed in this article.
Can I use the same schema for my English and Arabic store versions?
While the structure of the schema will be similar, the content within it must be localized. You should not use the same exact code. The Arabic version’s schema must contain translated text (product names, descriptions), the correct currency (AED), and potentially different availability or regional targeting (areaServed). Using Hreflang tags alongside localized schema is the best practice.
What are the most critical schema types for a UAE e-commerce site?
For an e-commerce site in the UAE, the most critical schema types are: Product (with nested Offer and AggregateRating), BreadcrumbList (for site navigation), Organization (for branding), and WebSite (for sitelinks search box). For local businesses with physical stores, LocalBusiness is also essential.
How does AI help in managing multilingual schema?
AI tools can significantly streamline the process of managing schema across multiple languages. They can assist in automatically generating baseline schema templates, identifying implementation gaps across thousands of pages at scale, and monitoring performance data to correlate schema health with SEO outcomes. At KalaGrafix, we use AI to augment our human expertise, allowing us to perform audits faster and more accurately.
Disclaimer
The information provided in this blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. SEO best practices and search engine algorithms change frequently. For a tailored strategy, please consult with an expert.
Your Partner in Global Digital Growth
Correcting Arabic schema issues is not just a technical task; it’s a strategic imperative for any e-commerce business serious about succeeding in the UAE and the broader MENA region. By ensuring your website speaks the structured language that Google understands, you lay the groundwork for better rankings, higher traffic, and a dominant presence in AI-powered search.
Ready to unlock your e-commerce potential in the UAE market? Contact KalaGrafix today for a comprehensive technical SEO audit. Let our team of experts, guided by Deepak Bisht’s strategic vision, identify and fix the critical issues holding you back.
About Deepak Bisht
Deepak Bisht is the Founder and AI SEO Strategist at KalaGrafix — a Delhi-based digital agency that blends AI and human creativity to build brands that grow smarter.
He regularly shares insights on AI marketing and SEO innovation on LinkedIn.

