Why it matters
Same-language content for different countries, such as German for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, is tricky for deduplication; Google tries to use hreflang alternates and recommends hreflang even for small regional variations. Without real differences, Google may cluster the versions and show only one.
How to meet it
Use hreflang with region codes (de-DE, de-AT, de-CH) and show country-specific prices and currency, shipping, legal details, addresses, phone numbers and regional vocabulary in the main content.
How to test it
Main content differs between each pair of country versions beyond the header and footer, and URL Inspection shows each version as its own canonical.
How Regensbot covers it
Decided automatically once Regensbot crawls your verified site.
The crawl is polite: sitemap first, one request per second per host. A problem it finds is definite, and “none found” passes only on a complete crawl.
Sources
Google documents03
- 01Tell Google about localized versions of your pageGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
- 02How to specify a canonical URL with rel="canonical" and other methodsGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
- 03Managing multi-regional and multilingual sitesGoogle Search Central (opens in a new tab)
Claims in the knowledge base06
- D2-C381ConsistentHandling web duplicationShown on screen
- D2-C382ConfirmedHandling web duplicationShown on screen
- D2-C628SourceLightning session G: InternationalisationGoogle's documentation
- D2-C385SourceHandling web duplicationGoogle's documentation
- D2-C632SourceLightning session G: InternationalisationGoogle's documentation
- D2-C384n/aHandling web duplicationThe author's interpretation
Claim IDs refer to the Search Central Live 2026 knowledge base. The knowledge base (opens in a new tab)
- Confirmed
- Google's documentation states the same thing.
- Consistent
- Google's documentation supports it without stating it.
- Source
- The claim is the cited document itself.
- n/a
- Nothing to verify: a quotation, framing, opinion or analysis.