Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Phone number for SEO
-
We have had an interesting question from a client. They have asked if removing their phone number from their website would have an affect on their rankings. Our immediate answer was 'No' but it may affect the Brand, Usability and Customer experience by restricting the methods of contact. This then made us think that perhaps then it could have an effect in the long term. This situation is also complicated by the fact that they do not have a Google Local Plus account for operational, sensitivity reasons (they don't want to openly publicise their address)
We believe that there shouldn't be any negative affect but thought we would open a discussion. Thanks in advance for any comments/ideas.
-
Thanks for the responses. It was my opinion that technically it should not affect anything but with the current direction of SEO and the potential affects of Engagement as ranking factors I thought it might be interesting to discuss.
Appreciate your comments....thanks
-
Hi Jeff
I would rather not identify the specific business.
The reason for removing the phone number is because it is a mobile number and the nature of the business means that they may get calls from other countries. This means the phone is ringing at any time of the day.
I agree it is not ideal but they do not have a landline number and a business phone cannot be manned all of the time. It is a strange set up but they are quite a small business and certainly not a typical client.
thanks for you comments
-
What business are they in that they wouldn't benefit from having a phone number? With the exception of large companies like Google and Yelp, who have to hide their phone numbers deep within their websites because of the sheer volume they get that doesn't actually help their business, I don't see why you would want to hide that. And even if you aren't a local business you can always benefit from some "local SEO" to help your presence a little bit. We even took this a step further and made our contact phone number texting compatible and it has helped a ton from a customer experience perspective.
Again, this is all dependent on the business because I know there are exceptions. But to answer your question directly, no I don't think that removing the phone number will hurt your organic results directly and I think that you can get away with not having a phone number on the site (if it makes sense for the business of course).
-
Eddie,
I believe if they are not focussing on Local SEO, there will be no effect on their rankings. Yes, I agree it's not good for the visitors if they don't find any mean of communication and this might affect them in a long run.
Umar
-
I think Remove Phone Number will not affect SEO, and if we talk about Google business page, after verified the business by Google, you can remove the phone number and address from your Google Business Page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Product Descriptions (SEO)
So I would like a few opinions. How long should a product description be? Enough to get the point across? 100 words? 800 words? Over detailed? Any advice would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | Aug 23, 2018, 7:12 AM | mattl990 -
Do WooCommerce product tags effect SEO?
I'm just curious if I need these product tags and if they impact in any way at all SEO? - whether that be positively or negatively. on1iRin
On-Page Optimization | Oct 18, 2017, 5:40 PM | xdunningx0 -
Does homepage SEO exist at all?
hi Just read a Yoast article explaining that the homepage should never be optimized for a specific keyword and should only be optimized for its business or brand name. i have a large site that I'd like to rank (or increase traffic for as I know people get irritated with that term now) for 'Campervan hire'. It has plenty of sub pages going after 'Campervan hire 'location'' for example. it makes sense to me for the homepage keyword - my core keyword - to be 'Campervan hire' and for the homepage to be optimised for this. However, the article I've just read (https://yoast.com/homepage-seo/) suggests a separate page for this keyword. What are your thoughts pls?? thanks
On-Page Optimization | Jan 15, 2016, 1:04 PM | CamperConnect142 -
SEO can id and class be used in H1?
Can ID and class be used in my H1 tag. I realize best case would be to change it, but it's going to require a change order from the ecommerce company to fix their sloppy code. Will this hurt seo? Example:
On-Page Optimization | Apr 4, 2014, 2:51 PM | K-WINTER0 -
Choosing a title tag in seo (H1 or H2 or H3)
I look many times on google that what is the best tag to set in title for seo, H1 or H2 or H3 In many forums and sites they are asking that you need to put only H2 tag in title and someone ask to put H1 in title and i am confused, Some body tell me the correct tag for seo in google, or any other search engine.
On-Page Optimization | Feb 11, 2014, 12:36 PM | seom20140 -
ECommerce Filtering Affect on SEO
I'm building an eCommerce website which has an advanced filter on the left hand side of the category pages. It allows users to tick boxes for colours, sizes, materials, and so on. When they've made their choices they submit (this will likely be an AJAX thing in a future release, but isn't at time of writing). The new filtered page has a new URL, which is made up of the IDs of the filter's they've ticked - it's a bit like /department/2/17-7-4/10/ My concern is that the filtered pages are, on the most part, going to be the same as the parent. Which may lead to duplicate content. My other concern is that these two URLs would lead to the exact same page (although the system would never generate the 'wrong' URL) /department/2/17-7-4/10/ /department/2/**10/**17-7-4/ But I can't think of a way of canonicalising that automatically. Tricky. So the meat of the question is this: should I worry about this causing issues with the SEO - or can I have trust in Google to work it out?
On-Page Optimization | Dec 15, 2013, 1:36 PM | AndieF0 -
Is .PW domain is good for SEO?
I want to register .PW domain which has recently got live to register. I am in doubt should it is good for SEO or not.
On-Page Optimization | Apr 4, 2013, 12:46 PM | semmediapvtltd0 -
Do you think using accordion text can hurt SEO?
I have a lot of text for my home page. My plan is to a J Query Plugin for accordion text. Does anyone think that this can hurt SEO efforts?
On-Page Optimization | Jan 7, 2016, 8:31 AM | DTOSI1