Fakhr El-Din Restaurant Amman - The Update

It's a fascinating exercise in SEO wot I posted about earlier today. Amman's classiest and tastiest (IMHO) Arabic restaurant, Fakhreddine, has long caused major search-derived traffic hereabouts because, in fact, the restaurant is properly called 'Fakhr El-Din'. and its 'proper' website is http://fakhreldin.com/. The restaurant, part of the ATICO group, has had to face standardising the English version of an Arabic name - so you could call it Fakhr El Din or Fakhr Eddine or Fakhr El-Din or Fakhreddine (the popular spelling at the time I first blogged about the restaurant) or any other combination of names.

The conundrum is which spelling you plump for - and which misspellings you include in your SEO efforts. The most popular (as I say, at the time, 'Fakhreddine' was the 'defacto' name of the restaurant in English) ones can be easily hijacked or cause frustration, so the trick is working out what they are and re-routing them to your 'real' spelling.

Arabic is wicked like that. Are you Ali Alhashemi, Ali Al-Hashemi or Ali Al Hashemi? Perhaps Ali Hashemi? All four are essential SEO targets. What's more, it gets even more complex as you 'drill down' into search.

But for now, let us consider Fakhr El Din to be the name to click on. It's a GREAT restaurant. The Fat Expat review says it all, really: It's linked here!

Fakhreddine

Image via Wikipedia

I flew to Jordan this week to speak and also gave a workshop on digital communications at the MediaME Digital Summit. In my humble opinion, MediaME - together with ArabNet and Click - is one of the region's critical digital events and this year's conference featured some great speakers (present company etc etc) and much thought-provoking opinion and debate.

It was slightly odd to be back in Jordan after having hit the 'go' button on the Middle East print edition of Olives (A Violent Romance) - somehow the book has become solid, concrete now. The King's Highway (the road from the airport to Amman, but also the Kingdom's core arterial route from Amman to Aqaba) is being rebuilt and is apparently to become a privatised toll route. The new airport will be ready by summer next year. And Amman nightclub Nai has been refurbished and rebranded. Just as well, after the incidents recounted in Olives! Did I mention you can now buy Olives as a printed book at amazon.com, BTW? I did? Ah, okay then...

During the workshop at MediaME, I used this silly wee blog as an example of SEO, pointing out how mad it was that I 'owned' Amman's delightful Fakhreddine restaurant on Google. If you Google 'Fakhreddine Amman' you don't get the restaurant itself (as you rightly should - it's a must visit if you're staying in Amman and want to eat some of the best Arab food the Levant can dish up), but you do get me.

This is not a good thing. It's a compelling reason for the restaurant to invest some money in SEO and grabbing back its ownership of its brand.

I got a comment from the audience - "Actually, we're their agency and if you Google just 'Fakhreddine' you get our client!

No you don't. You get Fakhr Al Din, various Fakhreddines, the restaurant in Broumana (Lebanon) and me. You don't get Amman's famous Lebanese/Arabic/Levantine (delete as your preference dictates) restaurant Fakhreddine. If you Google 'Fakhreddine restaurant' you get Fakhreddine Broumana, London and me in that order. You don't get Fakhreddine Amman. And that's mad, because the place is famous and generally celebrated for its excellence.

I wish I'd stopped the workshop to look it up then and there. If Amman's Fakhreddine had a website (if it does, I can't find it), I'd do a post specifically to right the wrong and redirect hungry Googlers to the right place, because I really do appreciate and support this most excellent of restaurants and wish it nothing but the very best.

But it does, like so many Middle Eastern businesses, need to get smarter about its online presence and search parameters.