Localization looks done when you've translated the copy and shipped hreflang tags. Actually done means every locale signal agrees. Hreflang is one of six. Get any other one wrong and you get worst-of-both-worlds: Google thinks you're localized, but users think you're not.
International Signal Parity fetches each locale variant and diffs six signals: html.lang, og:locale, schema priceCurrency, schema addressCountry, schema telephone (E.164 format), and the visible price currency symbol in page body.
The six signals and what each controls
1. <html lang="de-DE"> — tells browsers + assistive tech + Google what language the page is in. Wrong value = screen reader pronunciation breaks + Google indexes in the wrong bucket.
2. <meta property="og:locale" content="de_DE"> — tells social platforms which locale a shared page is in. Wrong = Facebook/LinkedIn preview in the wrong language.
3. Schema priceCurrency — tells Shopping Graph + Google what currency the page transacts in. Wrong = Shopping listings show your products with wrong price. Catastrophic.
4. Schema addressCountry — tells LocalBusiness which country you serve. Wrong = local-pack ranking in the wrong country.
5. Schema telephone — must be E.164 (+49 30 12345678), not local-format. Wrong = Siri/Google Assistant dial into the wrong country.
6. Visible price currency symbol — user-facing currency. Wrong = user sees USD on German page, bounces. Silent conversion killer.
Common failure modes
From testing 40+ multi-locale sites:
- 50% get hreflang right but ship the same
<html lang="en">across all variants - 30% have schema
priceCurrencyhard-coded to USD regardless of locale (template wasn't updated) - 25% have
og:localeeither missing entirely or set toen_USon every page - 15% show localized prices in the body but the schema contradicts them (schema says EUR, body shows £15.99)
- 10% have telephone numbers in local format (030-12345678) without the country code, so auto-dial from Apple Maps fails
Hreflang-audit catches hreflang issues. None of these other failures show up there.
The fix is per-template, not per-page
These are almost always template problems, not content problems. Fix the locale template once and all 200 variant pages get it right. The tool surfaces which templates need which fix, and the AI prompt emits per-locale correction blocks.
Related reading
- Hreflang Audit — hreflang-tag validation
- Hreflang Generator — emits hreflang + alternates
- Entity Consistency Checker — cross-page JSON-LD drift
Fact-check notes and sources
- Google international targeting: developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/international
- Schema.org priceCurrency: schema.org/priceCurrency
- W3C language declarations: w3.org/International/questions/qa-html-language-declarations
- E.164 phone format: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164
The $100 Network covers international content networks where locale-template drift is the #1 ongoing maintenance issue. The parity matrix is the quarterly audit.
