Ramadan Search Trends in Saudi Arabia
Ramadan-related search queries have grown 25% in two years, and GCC search volume nearly doubles during the month. What that means for a seasonal calendar.
Search demand rises sharply during Ramadan: a Google-commissioned study found GCC search queries nearly doubled against monthly averages, and Google reports that Ramadan-related query volume has grown 25% over the past two years. The date moves by about eleven days every year, which is the single biggest planning mistake this creates.
That seasonal swing is one piece of the state of search in Saudi Arabia, which covers the calendar alongside language, devices and engines. This post stays on Ramadan specifically: what the data shows, how demand moves through the month, and a worked example of planning around it.
Most of the public data on this is regional rather than Saudi-specific, and some of it is a few years old. That is worth saying up front rather than dressing an older study up as a fresh number. The pattern it describes — an early, sustained surge that peaks around Eid — has held for long enough, and is consistent enough with the more recent Google reporting cited below, that it is still the right shape to plan against, even where the exact figures are dated.
When does search demand actually move during Ramadan?
Sharply, and earlier than most calendars assume. A Google-commissioned study of GCC search behaviour found that queries nearly doubled during Ramadan compared with monthly averages, with online deals and Ramadan promotions among the most searched topics [2]. More recently, Google's own reporting shows Ramadan-related query volume growing 25% over the past two years [1].
+25% in two years
Mobile carries an even larger share of that demand than it does the rest of the year. The same GCC study found mobile searches made up more than 60% of total queries during Ramadan, about five points higher than the average month [2] — consistent with mobile already carrying the majority of Saudi web traffic year-round [3]. We cover that baseline in mobile search in Saudi Arabia.
| Phase | Typical timing | What people search for |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-Ramadan planning | 6–8 weeks before | Recipes, cooking appliances, decorations, early deals |
| First ten days | Start of the month | Routine adjustments, prayer times, iftar recipes |
| Middle ten days | Mid-month | Sustained shopping and content browsing, family gatherings |
| Final ten days and Eid | End of month | Perfume, Eid clothing, gifts, travel |
What does an eight-week Ramadan plan actually look like?
Picture a hypothetical example: a mid-sized Saudi home-goods retailer preparing for its first properly planned Ramadan season. This is illustrative, not a real client result, but it follows the pattern that shows up across the data above. In previous years, the store treated Ramadan as a single week of banner ads placed once the month had already started, and every year it watched a competitor's seasonal page outrank its own without understanding why. The difference was never the product; it was the eight weeks of lead time the competitor's page had and this store's did not.
Eight weeks out: confirm this year's dates
Look up the expected start of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr for the coming year, since the date shifts by about eleven days annually, and put it on a shared calendar.
Six weeks out: publish or refresh the Ramadan landing page
Reuse last year's URL rather than building a new one, so it keeps the links and history it already earned.
Four weeks out: cover the pre-Ramadan searches directly
Recipe content, gift guides and 'best of' style pages tend to draw the early planning searches the data shows starting weeks ahead.
During the month: watch mobile performance closely
With mobile carrying an even larger share of traffic than usual, a slow mobile checkout costs more during Ramadan than in any other month.
Within two weeks of Eid: review and file the results
Compare against the same season last year, note what worked, and store it with next year's date so the plan does not start from zero again.
For our hypothetical retailer, the payoff of this pattern is not one dramatic spike. It is that the page publishing early enough to be indexed and linked before demand arrives is the one that actually captures it — a page written the week Ramadan starts is competing for demand that has already been searched for six weeks.
The other habit worth building into this calendar is reuse. A store that builds a fresh "Ramadan offers" URL every year throws away every link and every bit of ranking history the old one earned, and starts each season from zero. Keeping one evergreen page and updating its content annually is a small discipline that compounds the same way the eight-week head start does — the third year of a reused page tends to rank faster than the first year of a brand-new one ever did.
Does this cost more to advertise into, and does it connect to other seasons?
Often, on paid channels specifically. The same period of heightened demand draws heightened advertiser competition: a Google-commissioned MENA study found television advertising costs on top channels rising sharply during Ramadan due to clutter, while YouTube cost-per-view and view-through rates for Ramadan campaigns stayed roughly flat against other months, with campaigns reporting higher-than-average lifts in ad recall and brand awareness [2]. Organic search does not have an auction in the same way, which is part of why the eight-week head start above matters more than a bigger budget in the moment.
Paid search specifically tends to follow the same shape as TV: more advertisers bidding on the same seasonal terms pushes cost per click up for the weeks around the peak, then it settles back down once Eid passes. A page that already ranks organically before that window opens is not exposed to that cost spike at all, which is one more argument for treating the eight weeks before Ramadan as the real campaign, not the month itself.
Ramadan is not the only seasonal peak on the Saudi calendar. White Friday search trends covers the late-November sales period the same way, and language shifts during Ramadan too — seasonal, family-oriented content is disproportionately Arabic, which Arabic vs English search queries covers in more depth. Together with the revenue context in Saudi ecommerce market size, these three posts are the seasonal half of the picture this cluster covers. If you want a dated calendar built for your own categories rather than a generic checklist, our pricing is public.
Questions people also ask
How much does search demand actually rise during Ramadan?
A Google-commissioned study found search queries across the GCC nearly doubled during Ramadan compared with monthly averages, and Google reports Ramadan-related query volume has grown 25% over the past two years.
When should I publish or refresh a Ramadan page?
About eight weeks before Ramadan starts. Shoppers begin planning that early, and a new page needs time to be crawled, indexed and linked before demand peaks.
Does mobile search rise even further during Ramadan?
Yes. A Google-commissioned study found mobile searches made up more than 60% of total GCC queries during Ramadan, roughly five points higher than the average month.
Is Ramadan the only seasonal peak I need to plan for?
No. White Friday in late November is the other major peak in Saudi retail, and it needs the same eight-week lead time, on a different content calendar.
Sources
- Finding information during Ramadan — Google (checked 23 September 2026)
- Ramadan in MENA: The Digital Opportunity for Brands — Think with Google MENA (checked 23 September 2026)
- Platform Market Share Saudi Arabia — Statcounter Global Stats (checked 23 September 2026)
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Who wrote this
Ibrahem HelalCo-founder
Leads strategy and delivery.
Works on: SEO, GEO
Reviewed before publishing by Jeremy Zava, Co-founder.
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