SEO Test: Phone Number Formats

How do you know what you know about Search Engine Optimization?  Think about it for a second.  While many of us have years of experience we can only optimize so many websites.  Often we base knowledge on what we have heard or learned from trusted sources.  Now that is fine for our everyday life but is this the best method for our SEO knowledge?  In a court of law, this would be called hearsay and would not be an acceptable form of evidence.  I have found that this is often where SEO myths come from.  A statement made, and then repeated so often it has become fact.  What makes this dangerous is that often we base decisions for our own websites, or even worse client websites, on these often-repeated myths.

We can put an end to this cycle but it requires us to be skeptical of everything we hear and put all of it, including our beliefs through a rigorous testing process.  One that should state the hypothesis we are testing, and eliminate as many variables as possible.

To illustrate my point, for this month’s test, I would like to go back to July 10th.  An individual tweeted at John Mueller and Danny Sullivan; he wanted to know the best format to use when listing his company’s phone number online (https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1016747559182897158).  Obviously, this is important because if customers are not able to find your number they are likely to go to your competitors.

John Mueller’s reply was a typically vague Google response, “I imagine it’s futile for any directory to require phone numbers with specific separators :)”  Maybe it’s me, but I feel that this didn’t really answer the question.  The exchange was picked up by Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable with the article headline ” Google Implies Phone Number Formats Don’t Matter” and in the article states, “I suspect Google can figure out many types of phone number formats based on your preferred style” (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-phone-number-formats-26026.html).  A simple question received a vague reply, and then the next person extrapolated meaning that may or not be there.  Now this article may be used as “evidence” when in fact nothing was proven.  This makes a great scenario for some SEO mythbusting.

So, the hypothesis is simple: Google can recognize many types of phone numbers formats.  For this test I setup 10 html pages and used all the same content in each (to eliminate variables) except on each page I include a phone number in a different format.  I tested the following formats:

1.     ##########
2.     ###-###-####
3.     ###.###.####
4.     (###)#######
5.     (###) #######
6.     (###)###-####
7.     (###) ###-####
8.     ### ### ####
9.     (###) ### ####
10.   (###)### ####

The first thing I’d like to point out is this can be an arduous process.  Testing takes time, it is a pain to document (what is clear the day you wrote, often seems like gibberish a month later) and when you are done you always notice things you forgot.  In this case I forgot to try the format ###_###_####.  I’m running it now so I’ll have the updated results in a week or so…but it still bugs me I forgot.

I ran this test 3 times using a different phone number in each set.  For the first two tests, I included the copy “Feel free to contact or call my phone anytime at”.  I did this because I assumed that Google needed some kind of context to know that those numbers were a phone number.  On the third test, I just placed the phone number in its own paragraph tag

.  I waited for the pages to be crawled, indexed and cached by Google – this took about two weeks.  Afterwards, I ran a search for each phone number format in both the general results and using the “site:” command to include only my testing domain.  As SEOs or business owner’s we cannot control how our customers/clients type our phone number into the search engines.  Therefore, we need to find the format that Google returns most often.

The results I got were fascinating.

The first thing I learned is that Google did not need the extra text for context.  The results for all of the tests were almost identical whether it included copy or just a naked phone number.  Second, that while yes, Google is pretty good at figuring out most phone number formats there are definitely formats it prefers and formats it does not recognize as a phone number.

The phone number format you should avoid at all costs is #3 (###.###.###).  For none of the other 9 format searches did this page ever get returned (even when using the “site:” command).  The only time Google returned the page containing this format is when I used this format.  And when I did the search with this format, now of the other pages were returned (again, even when using the “site:” command).  I think that clearly shows that Google does not recognize this as a phone number.

There were two other formats that Google did not rank in most cases: #4 & #5 (###)###### and (###) ####### respectively.  I suspect that the lack of a dash or space gave Google trouble.  Without those, it was not able to parse the numbers to understand that it is a phone number.  I would suggest not using those numbers either.

What format should you use?  Simple, #2 or #7 (###-###-#### and (###) ###-#### respectively) always ranked the best for every phone number format search.  Unlike the previous two examples that Google had trouble with, these were parsed with a dash between the prefix and line number.  A format that Google understands to signify a phone number.

I would then give an honorable mention to format numbers #6, #8, #9 and #10 – (###)###-####, ### ### ####, (###) ### #### and (###)### ####.  In most of my test searches, the pages containing these formats would appear…but not always.  I also noticed that if the pages were returned by Google they were always rankings behind the winners (#2 & #7).

So where does this all leave us?  If your phone number were placed on a website, I would always request they use one of the two “winning formats” (#2 & #7).  I suggest you pick one of those two formats and stick with it so that all your citations are consistent across the internet.  If a site uses formats #6, #8, #9 and #10 I would not worry at all, Google will likely recognize it.  Lastly, if a site uses formats #3, #4 or #5 I would ask them to adjust it.  If it is a directory and that is their standard format I may consider bypassing it if it is a cumbersome submission process or they require payment for inclusion.  It likely won’t be worth your time or money.

Let’s take a step back now and think about where we started and where we have come.  We began this journey with a vague quote by a Google employee.  That was interpreted one way by a reliable resource and had the chance to become “fact”.  However, we do not accept anecdotal evidence; we strive for SEO truth by using rigorous testing processes.

Let me know what you thought about my test.  Did I miss something?  If anyone wants to try to replicate and verify my test please do.  This testing process helps us from accepting SEO Myths as facts.  It grants us a better understanding of Google’s algorithm and makes both our sites and our clients’ sites stronger.

Bonus Level: After performing all these tests and discussing the results with my team, I was asked by one of my SEO Specialist “TJ” if I had considered using the HTML telephone link code.  To be honest, I had forgotten all about this code.  For those of you like me who had forgotten about this code like me or were unaware of it, it is code that allows you to click/tap on the phone number and have your mobile device or desktop app make a call.  The code looks like this: phone number or text goes here.

I decided to take one of me test sets and add these variables.  First I wrapped the #3 format (the worst performing format) in this code: ###.###.####.  Then I added an additional page using just text: click to call.  It has been over a week and in both cases, neither of these pages are returned for any of the different phone number searches.  So far, it appears that Google does not use the content of that code for ranking purposes.  But, I’ll keep these pages up and let you know of anything changes.

As is often the case with SEO testing, I invariably forget something.  In the last post I tested the best telephone formats to use on the web so that Google can understand them.  If you did not read that article, I suggest you get your hands on the Q3 issue of PAGES SEO Magazine and review it.  I mentioned that I had not tested the phone number format ###_###_####.  I added this format to the three iterations of my test grid.  After a coupleweeks the results were in.  While that format did not perform as well as the “winning formats”, it did deserve an honorable mention.  So again, I would not use ###_###_#### on my website but if forced to use that format on another site I would not worry too much – Google will likely figure it out.

The second test variation I had not considered was wrapping the phone numbers in the HTML telephone link code: .  I tried two different variations of this test.  First, I wrapped this code around the “losing format” of the phone number (the one using periods – ###.###.####).  The second variation was to wrap the code around just text.  The phone number never appears on the page, only within the telephone code.  If Google reads the number in the code and uses it for on-page optimization purposes, the pages should rank in the search results.