How do you know what you know about search engine optimization?
Think about it for a second. Even those of us that have years of experience can only optimize so many websites — meaning in the course of our work, we sometimes encounter issues we may have never been exposed to and must look beyond the scope of our own first-hand knowledge to determine the best course of action. Often, we base knowledge on what we have heard or learned from trusted sources. 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 upon which to make important conclusions.
I have found that this is often where SEO myths come from. A statement is made, and then repeated so often that it becomes a “fact.” What makes this dangerous is that often we base business 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. We must 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, let’s 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. Obviously, this is important: if customers are not able to find your number, they are likely to go to your competitors instead.
In Google’s typical fashion, John Mueller gave this vague reply:
https://twitter.com/JohnMu/status/1016747559182897158
Maybe it’s me, but I felt that this didn’t really answer the question.
The exchange was picked up by Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable, with an article headlined "Google Implies Phone Number Formats Don't Matter.” The article states: “I suspect Google can figure out many types of phone number formats based on your preferred style.”
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 actually proven. This makes a great scenario for some SEO mythbusting!
The Test
So, the hypothesis is simple: Google can recognize many types of phone number formats. For this test, I setup 10 HTML pages and used the same content in each (to eliminate variables), except on each page, I included a phone number in a different format.
I tested the following formats:
- ##########
- ###-###-####
- ###.###.####
- (###)#######
- (###) #######
- (###)###-####
- (###) ###-####
- ### ### ####
- (###) ### ####
- (###)### ####
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 (notes that are clear the day you wrote them often seem like gibberish a month later), and once 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 that I forgot.
I ran this test three 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 (<p>).
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 owners, we cannot control how our customers or clients type our phone number into the search engines. Therefore, we need to identify 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, while 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, none 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 [(###)#######] and #5 [(###) #######]. I suspect 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 format either.
What format should you use? Simple: formats #2 [###-###-####] or #7 [(###) ###-#### ] 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 formats #6 [(###)###-####], #8 [### ### ####], #9 [(###) ### ####] and #10 [(###)### ####]. 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.” 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’s a cumbersome submission process, or they require payment for inclusion. It likely won’t be worth your time or money.
After performing all these tests and discussing the results with my team, I was asked by one of my SEO Specialists 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, or were unaware of it, it is code that allows you to click or tap on the phone number and have your mobile device or desktop app make a call — also sometimes referred to as “click to call.”
The code looks like this:
<a href=tel:+1-###-###-####>phone number or text goes here</a>.
I decided to take one of my test sets and add these variables. First, I wrapped the #3 format (the worst performing format) in this code: <a href=tel:+1-###-###-####>###.###.####</a>. Then, I added an additional page using just text: <a href=tel:+1-###-###-####>click to call</a>.
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 monitor if anything changes.
The Takeaways: What We Learned
Let’s take a step back now and think about where we started, and where we have come.
We began this journey with a question, and vague answer by a Google employee. That answer was interpreted one way by a reliable resource, the interpretation was shared with other SEOs, and it became a “fact”. However, my tests have demonstrated that this “fact” is anything but.
Do not accept anecdotal evidence; 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. These testing processes help prevent 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.
And at the end of the day, this understanding allows us to make better business decisions, and identify opportunities to improve our sites in ways that competitors haven’t. The decision to dive deeper, instead of taking information at the surface level, can make all the difference in the SERPs.
