SEO effects on Uni-encoded website?

[izahmad]

I was wondering if there are any bad SEO effects on your site if your site is uni-encoded to protect your code? Also what code search engine robots will see, the uni-encoded code or the translated code? I tried to run a google simulation on the website and it showed me the translated code... Also is it a NO for spiders as they first have to translate the code (extra work) and then process it?

[encyclo]

I assumes when you mention "uni-encoded" you mean that characters are replaced by Numeric Character References (NCRs).

Firstly, such "encoding" does nothing to protect your site, as the numeric references correspond exactly to their character counterparts. Secondly, search engines will probably handle them correctly assuming they have correct character encoding support (should be OK in all the major SEs), but their use will significantly increase the page weight for no real gain.