Most of the people I talk to about SEO in the DACH region have no idea how complex it actually gets.
It sounds so simple: Let’s just translate the website into German and we’re good to go, right?
Well… unfortunately, no.
Translating your website into German might help you rank in Germany — but that doesn’t guarantee anything in Austria or Switzerland.
And both of these countries, despite their smaller populations, shouldn’t be ignored.
On this page, you’ll find key information about doing SEO in the DACH region, plus additional resources to dive deeper into what it really takes to rank in these three countries.
What is DACH?
DACH stands for Germany (D), Austria (A), and Switzerland (CH).
It’s how we refer to the German-speaking market across these three countries from an economic perspective — in German, too.
Why do we need a special word for it? Well, the thing is: we’re geographically close, and cross-border business has always been part of our everyday life.
My grandfather was a carpenter in a small town in the Austrian Alps. And when my grandmother tells stories from the ‘80s, they’re full of visits to clients all over Germany and Switzerland.
Our big advantage? We more or less speak the same language. (More on that later.)
And that’s why we have a special word to refer to this unique market.
What’s the big problem then when doing SEO for DACH?
’ve seen many websites try to enter the entire German-speaking market.
And I’ve seen many of them fail completely.
From the outside, these three countries might look pretty similar.
You might think: German is German, right?
But if you knew how things really work… you’d think twice before applying a one-size-fits-all strategy.
That’s exactly why we’re talking about this on this page.
Because you can’t just translate your website into German and hope for the best.
So let’s look at the key differences — and what you need to keep in mind when planning your German SEO strategy.
The Language Dilemma – German is not German
Did you know there are three different dictionaries in German? And that some words are only used in one of the three DACH countries?
These words are called “Austriazismen” (used only in Austria) and “Helvetismen” (used only in Switzerland).
For example, in Austria we say “heuer” for “this year” — while in Germany the correct term would be “dieses Jahr”. Unless, of course, you’re talking to an Austrian.
In Switzerland, people say “Velo” for “bicycle” — a word that most Germans and Austrians wouldn’t understand. In standard German, it’s “Fahrrad”.
That’s the reality.
And just to make things more fun: what we call High German is really just the version we use for writing, news, and maybe dubbed Netflix shows. In real life, we all speak dialects — and they can be very different.
So no, we don’t always understand each other.
One Domain for all? Let’s look at the Data
I am working on a DACH Domain Strategy Study from SE Ranking Data. When this is ready, I will add the information here.
SEO in Switzerland: A very different case
Switzerland is by far the most complicated of the three countries — let me tell you that.
Not just the most difficult, but also the most different one.
Honestly, I could talk for hours about SEO in Switzerland.
And that’s exactly why I started a newsletter about it:
More on the topic
Here are some interesting additional links on the topic
https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/seo-strategy-dach-markets
I am talking a lot about this topic on stage.
For example, at the International Search Summit in 2024 I talked about the Language Problems in multilingual Switzerland. In Mai 2025 I talked about how to do SEO for DACH in Spanish at the Andalu-SEO. There is definitely more to come, and hopefully soon, near you. Have an eye on my Speaking Page that I am sometimes updating.
