19/07/2026
Google just quietly published a number that SEOs have been guessing at for years.
How long after fixing a duplicate content issue should you wait before checking if it worked?
Up to two weeks.
That's in Google's official canonicalisation troubleshooting doc now. Not a forum estimate. Not a vague "it depends." An actual ceiling, in writing.
But here's where most people will misread it:
The two weeks only applies to one specific situation — pages held in a duplicate cluster because their content was too similar, then differentiated.
And Google makes something else clear in the same doc:
Clearly distinct content splits out faster.
Which means the two-week window isn't just a calendar reminder. It's a quality test. If you rewrote the page and it's still clustered after two weeks, the rewrite probably wasn't different enough.
Full breakdown of what the number covers, what it doesn't, and how we're using it with clients →
