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Thanks, Miriam!  I appreciate your time and expertise. We'll continue to proceed with the steps you recommended.  I'll also provide an update if we do eventually resolve the issue!

-Lindsey

Hi Miriam,

Thank you for your response. Below are the answers to your questions.

1) What is the origin of this unwanted phone number? Was it previously used by the business or do you have no idea at all where it's coming from? The business we're referring to is a health system, and the phone number is an outgoing phone number that is used by physicians to anonymously call their patients. If you call the phone number, you hear a pre-recorded message that it is an outgoing phone number and are unable to reach anyone via that line. I'm unaware whether this phone number was ever used as an actual phone number, but it's very unlikely.

**2) If you have no idea where it's coming from, have you looked up the number in Google's main search engine to see which website pages it is published on?  **
The web pages this phone number is published on are all "reverse phone number" websites such as shouldianswer.com, npnr.org, okcaller.com, everycaller.com, callersmart.com, and so forth. These are all 3rd party sites that we have no control over.

4) If a third party, is the name and/or address of your business also published on the page that is listing the unwanted phone number?  The organization name appears in some of the user comments, but not this specific location's name or address. I've requested that the user comments be removed from the 3rd party sites, and they have been taken down. Most 3rd party sites just list the city. I've been unable to find the address or specific location name listed with the phone number.

6) Where, exactly, is Google displaying your name associated with this phone number? Is it in your Google Knowledge Panel? Is it in the organic results? The location is displaying in both Google organic results and the knowledge panel. The organic link always appears, but the knowledge panel only appears when performing a search in that geographic area. I've received screenshots from users searching in that area and have also been able to replicate it using BrightLocal's local search results checker.

Sadly, when looking in Search Console, this incorrect phone number is also the #1 keyword driving traffic to this page, so I'm eager to figure out a solution!

I'm attaching an image of the phone number and location as it appears in search results.

lu26ZtI

Hello,

I'm in a unique situation where I need to prevent a web page and business listing from ranking for a keyword in Google. The keyword is a phone number that is not associated with the business and is not listed anywhere on the page or in reviews on the business listing. It's causing confusion for people who perform a reverse phone number lookup and see our business and think we called them. I already submitted feedback on the search results, have contacted GMB support, have submitted the page for indexing in Search Console, and am now going to try displaying the correct phone number in the page title and meta description. 
Aside from these steps, is there anything else I can do? Your help is appreciated!

Thanks!

• Lindsey

Question for you guys: After analyzing some crawl data in Search Console in the sitemap section, I noticed that Google consistently isn't indexing about 3/4 of the client sites I work on that all use the same content management system. I began to wonder if maybe Google (and others) have a hard time crawling certain parts of the sites consistently, as finding a pattern here could lead me to investigate whether there's a CMS problem.

To research this, I started using a log file analyzer (Screaming Frog's version) for some of those clients. After loading the files, I noticed that none of the crawl activity logged by the servers is considered verified. I input one month's worth of log files, but when I switch the program to show only verified bots, all data disappears. Is it possible for a site not to have any search engines crawling it for a whole month? Given my experience, that seems unlikely, particularly since we've been submitting crawl requests. I know that doesn't guarantee a crawl, but it seems odd that it's never happening for any search engines across the board.

Context that might be helpful:

• I did check technical settings, and the sites are crawlable.
• The sites do appear in search but seem to be losing organic search traffic.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Hello,

I'm in a unique situation where I need to prevent a web page and business listing from ranking for a keyword in Google. The keyword is a phone number that is not associated with the business and is not listed anywhere on the page or in reviews on the business listing. It's causing confusion for people who perform a reverse phone number lookup and see our business and think we called them. I already submitted feedback on the search results, have contacted GMB support, have submitted the page for indexing in Search Console, and am now going to try displaying the correct phone number in the page title and meta description. 
Aside from these steps, is there anything else I can do? Your help is appreciated!

Thanks!

• Lindsey