SEO in Algeria: what we did on our own site first, and what changed

What is search engine optimization, in practice?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is everything that helps a search engine find a page, understand it and show it to the right person, without paying for an ad. It works on three fronts: the technical side, so the page is readable and fast; the content, so it answers the question that was typed; and trust, so your business’s details are the same everywhere it appears.

In Algeria the question of which engine is quickly settled: in September 2026 Google handled 97.6% of searches and Bing 1.5%, according to StatCounter. The audience is large: DataReportal counted 37.8 million internet users in Algeria at the end of 2025, 79.5% of the population.

Our site, somuraqami.dz, went live on 31 August 2026 in Arabic and French, and in English the next day. The sections below go through what we changed on it, in the order we did it.

A page Google can read from the first response

The first version of our site was built with React, like many modern sites: the server sent an empty page, and 208 KB of JavaScript then filled it in the browser. On a slow connection nothing appeared until that download finished, and indexing depended on Google’s crawler running the code.

On 1 September 2026 we started building every page ahead of time, at release: the server now sends a complete HTML file whose content depends on no JavaScript at all. The Arabic home page went from 168 KB to 106 KB, and its text arrives in the server’s very first response.

To check your own site, view the source of a page (Ctrl+U in most browsers). If your text is there, Google reads it without effort; if all you see is an almost empty page, your content depends on JavaScript.

Speed, measured on a slow connection

We measured the Arabic home page on a slow connection profile: 400 kbps, 400 ms of latency and a CPU slowed four times, nine runs per version. The first paint came after 2,028 ms. The cause was visible: the stylesheet was a separate file that blocked rendering, and a preloaded 54 KB font competed with it for the same narrow connection.

We put the stylesheet inside every page, about 3.6 KB compressed, and dropped the font preload. On the same profile, first paint fell to 864 ms, page weight from 109 KB to 65 KB, and requests from five to three. The Arabic font itself was cut to the Arabic characters alone: from 123,688 to 54,988 bytes, without a single pixel of difference on screen.

What you can ask your developer for:

• Measure on a slow connection, not on the office fibre: browser tools can simulate one.
• Remove what blocks the first paint at the top of the page: stylesheets and scripts.
• Load only the font characters the site needs.
• Compare before and after over several runs, never one.

Arabic, French, English: one address per language

Google recommends a different address for each language version of a page, linked together with hreflang tags, rather than one address whose language changes with the browser. That is what we chose: Arabic at the root of the site, French under /fr/ and English under /en/, each page pointing to its two other versions.

People do not search for the same things in each language, and our own data shows it. In our Search Console for September, the searches about SEO all came in French (“seo algerie”, “référencement naturel algérie”), and those about the price of a website almost all in Arabic (“سعر تصميم موقع الكتروني في الجزائر”). A word-for-word translation answers neither audience: each version is written with the words of its own language.

One detail needed a fix: old addresses under /ar/ sent visitors to the Arabic pages with a redirect written inside the page, which some crawlers do not follow. Since 26 September the server answers with a permanent redirect (301).

One address for the whole site

The same site can answer at several addresses: with or without www, over http or https. To a search engine these are separate copies that split links and signals between them. In our first Search Console export, 44 of the 84 page rows still carried the www.somuraqami.dz address.

Since 26 September 2026 every one of these variants answers with a permanent redirect to https://somuraqami.dz/. The domain name matters too: Google describes country-code domains such as .dz as a strong signal that a site is meant for a particular country.

Titles written with your customers’ words

Search Console, Google’s free tool, shows for every page the searches it appeared for and its position. Our first export changed three titles. The website design page appeared around position 70 for “سعر تصميم موقع” (the price of a website) while its title quoted no price, although the page states one: its title now quotes the starting price, 15,000 DZD.

Two of our pages on the Digital Algeria 2030 strategy competed for the same searches, and Google alternated them between positions 6 and 8. We gave each its role: the reference page on one side, the practical guide on the other. And our French SEO page now begins with “Agence SEO”, the words that ranked it 35th and 54th.

These titles changed on 26 September; their effect will show in the export at the end of October, not before. A title over 60 characters is cut in the results: we then drop the brand name, never the words people search for.

What Google reads besides the text

Structured data is a summary for machines placed in every page: who publishes, at what address, at what price, which article and which author. On our site it gives the site’s name, the breadcrumb trail of every page, the author of every article and the starting price of the services that have one.

Two rules make it useful. It must say exactly what the page shows: our build refuses to publish a price that differs between the page and its data. And it must be valid: on 26 September the W3C validator found no error, no warning and no note on our 66 pages, and since then an error stops the release.

Your Google profile, and the same details everywhere

For a local search, Google cross-checks your site against your Business Profile. On 4 September we aligned the site’s address and opening hours with the profile; on the 25th we added the office’s exact coordinates, taken from the place’s own pin rather than the map’s centre, which sat about 200 metres away.

One error remains, and we leave it in plain sight because it is instructive: Google Maps still gives our office the old postcode 30200, while the site, OpenStreetMap and the commercial register say 55000. One inconsistent detail is enough to sow doubt, for a search engine just as for a customer.

How long before results show?

On our site, launched on 31 August, impressions in Google rose from about 7 a day in the first week of September to about 60 in the last, and to between 75 and 86 a day from 27 to 29 September; 30 clicks in 28 days, 24 of them from Algeria.

These figures do not say which change did what. A month-old site is still being discovered by Google, our changes overlapped, and Search Console attributes nothing. The right method is simple: note the date of each change, compare two exports four weeks apart, and leave what you are measuring alone in between.

Choosing an SEO agency in Algeria: the warning signs

This guide describes what we changed on our own site. Choosing a provider now has its own guide: how to choose an SEO agency in Algeria, with the questions to ask before signing and the warning signs Google documents.