Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Does a phone number in the title tag hurt your rankings in SERP?

    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.

    Does a phone number in the title tag hurt your rankings in SERP?

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    7
    4154
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Ideas-Money-Art
      Ideas-Money-Art last edited by

      Hi Mozzers,

      One of my client is a carpet cleaner and I was wondering if adding a phone number into the title tags would hurt our rankings .

      I am asking because the client has mentioned it and that we do have some space to add a phone number into the tag.

      Thanks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MiriamEllis
        MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

        Great discussion here, guys!

        Just thought I'd pop in to add my 2 cents.

        Having a phone number in the title tag will not 'hurt' the business in any way, and is a not uncommon practice in Local SEO. The only possible negative to doing this would be that you would have less characters to devote to words as they are being devoted to the digits of the phone number. So, that's about the only downside of doing this. Just remember, the client should be putting a unique title tag on every page, so some of his pages might have a phone number in the title tag, but don't use it on every page. Be creative, varied and informative in each tag and you should not expect any negative outcomes.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Ideas-Money-Art
          Ideas-Money-Art @Ideas-Money-Art last edited by

          Thanks for sharing your opinions and thoughts Tyler

          Appreciated 🙂

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • TLM
            TLM @Ideas-Money-Art last edited by

            I think it would depend on how well the site(s) is ranking already. If it is ranking well and you are only filling in the extra characters (that is how I am reading it), then I can't see it hurting the sites SERP rankings.

            However, if you are removing terms from the title to add the number, then I think you may see a dip in the results.

            My bottom line: It seems to me that you are simply adding the number and not replacing anything with it. If that is the case, I really can't see it hurting the results. You shouldn't act on your clients site with just my opinion though; hopefully some others will populate this thread with some additional insight.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Ideas-Money-Art
              Ideas-Money-Art @TLM last edited by

              Thank you for your thorough answer tyler!

              I think that both of you have good points. On one hand Matt thinks that a phone number might sacrifice the opportunity of having a secondary keyword or a better description of the business. On the other hand Tyler thinks that adding a pn to the title might decrease traffic but generates more leads meaning a potential increase in sales which is exactly what a business wants.

              But do you guys think that a phone number in a title tag won't hurt the SERP's ranking? assuming you add a phone number in all the main service pages and a different phone number for each of the 40+ microsites?

              thanks

              TLM Ideas-Money-Art 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • TLM
                TLM last edited by

                I am going to have to disagree, sort of, with Horizon on the usefulness of the number within the title tag -with some reservations of course:

                If the client is a local service business (I am only assuming it is based on the description of the client as a 'carpet cleaner') then I can see some usefulness to filling the space you haven't already used with a phone number. I see what Horizon is saying about using that valuable real estate to help draw visitors into the site, but at the same time I would assume that a converting lead is most important to the client so I am inclined to say that your best option is to test them both.

                I know, sort of a lackluster answer.

                The only reason I am not fully supporting the answer supplied by Horizon (it is a good answer regardless) is that I am not positive about how someone searching for a service, like the one supplied by your client, would like to come across and contact a vendor. Traditionally it was the phone book, word of mouth and hoping for a good result, but with all the local business sites populating the web now, I find myself taking the quality of the site as an indication of the quality of the business. However, if I was needing a carpet cleaned in a hurry I might be inclined to call the number listed in the SERPs if the rest of the blurb made it clear that they were in my area and did, in fact, clean carpets.

                If it was up to me I would make a note of how the site is currently performing in terms of bringing in organic traffic/converting leads, and then I would test the other two options over a period of time. When benchmarking the current performance I would establish a set of key performance metrics to track throughout (the most important being how many converting leads are generated). Maybe test with the phone number and then test with some additional information and no number. I would wait, and use the data available to me, to find a historically stable period of time in which the testing can be as controlled as possible. Remember: if you are testing the phone number at the end you should be sure that the rest of the title supplies enough information for the potential customer to feel comfortable contacting your client.

                So after all of that typing I am still where I started:

                Is it better to have a small sell line or a phone number?

                Is supplying a number in the SERPs when the competition does not a good way to gain a little bit of ground over them?

                Are those ten or so characters enough to include anything substantial besides the phone number?

                Is the possible decrease in organic traffic worth the possible increase in the 'oh my god, the cat just knocked over an entire bottle of wine and the inlaws are visiting this weekend!' busniess that may or may not be created by offering a phone number in the SERPs?

                Is the rest of the title descriptive enough to convince someone searching for your clients service is what they need and that they should skip clicking through to the site in favor of calling the number?

                I would be interested in reading what some of the other users have to say. I am sure there are differing opinions and a few hundred minds are better than one.

                Ideas-Money-Art 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Horizon
                  Horizon last edited by

                  Hi,

                  I don't think it will hurt per se, but I would like to know why they would want to do that?

                  The title tag is quite important real estate, so I would be inclined to use the 10 or so characters more effectively. Also, if people see their telephone in SERPs, that's a click your client isn't going to get through to their website.

                  Matt

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • lina_digital

                    Using a hyphen in title tags and the impact of spaces

                    Hi I am trying to arrive at a best practice template for a title tag for my organization so does the following template still holds Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name will anything be impacted  if I eliminate the spaces between the hyphen, will search bots be still able to treat the first one as a priority and the second as the secondary? Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Brand Name thank you

                    On-Page Optimization | | lina_digital
                    0
                  • stephen.volker

                    Affect of ™ and ® in title for SEO

                    I am looking at adding the trademark and rights reserved symbols to some of my titles. I think this might help with click through rate. From what I have found, this shouldn't have an affect on SEO unless it makes the title too long. Is this correct? Stephen

                    On-Page Optimization | | stephen.volker
                    1
                  • HectorCortes

                    Commas in title tags

                    Hello Guys, Thanks in advance for all who can help me with this I am helping a dinnerware company with their SEO. I told them to change their ambiguous  title tags for more specific ones. However, they opted to create some title tags with 2 or three keywords separated by commas. I have attached an excel image illustrating their new title tags.. My question is, will this format be a problem with Google--penalties? The questionable title tags are highlighted in light orange. Thanks! lHH92

                    On-Page Optimization | | HectorCortes
                    0
                  • mrdavidingram

                    SVG image files causing multiple title tags on page - SEO issue?

                    Does anyone have any experience with SVG image files and on-page SEO? A client is using them and it seems they use the title tag in the same way a regular image (JPG/PNG) would use an image ALT tag. I'm concerned that search engines will see the multiple title tags on the page and that this will cause SEO issues. Regular crawlers like Moz flag it as a second title tag, however it's outside the header and in a SVG wrap so the crawlers really should understand that this is a SVG title rather than a second page title. But is this the case? If anyone has experience with this, I'd love to hear about it.

                    On-Page Optimization | | mrdavidingram
                    2
                  • Switch_Digital

                    How to separate your - keywords - and | Brand name in the Title Tag

                    I have traditionally used hyphens (-) and vertical bars (|) to separate out keywords/brands in title tags. A client has asked if other characters will work such as tilde (~), apersat (@), forward slash (/) etc. Are there any special characters we should steer clear of?

                    On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital
                    0
                  • OOMDODigital

                    Multiple Cities in Title Tag

                    My question is how to avoid having a spammy title. Currently I'm working on a project where a business serves four cities, but two of them are out of its home state. I'm trying to create a title tag that is appealing to the eyes, and meets what I need it to do at the same time. I was wondering what everyone though of this sample Brand X Dealer Serving Newark, DE; New Castle, DE; Glens Mills, PA; and Springfield, PA I know that too much repetition can be a bad thing, but this might not be a big deal since they are separate instances. Let me know what you all think. Thanks!

                    On-Page Optimization | | OOMDODigital
                    0
                  • mymochamoney

                    Duplicate Title and Meta Description Tags in Shopify with this App

                    Hello. I'm finding that by adding the Ultra SEO app in Shopify, I now have duplicates of the Title tags and Meta Descriptions. It looks like it's pulling title tags from the Shop info, the product or page titles as well as the Title tag I add in Ultra SEO. The website is 1bigcookie.com. The duplicate meta descriptions are from the text I entered in the meta description field in Ultra SEO. I entered the canonical url code shopify specifies to help with duplicate content, but what about duplicate title and meta description tags on the same page?

                    On-Page Optimization | | mymochamoney
                    0
                  • lwilkins

                    Is it better to include the secondary keyword or site name in a title tag?

                    When I add a site name to my title tag with long-tailed primary and secondary keywords the title tag is longer than 70 characters. I need to include all three parts, so what should I do? At 70 characters the site name is usually partially cut off. I do not want to get penalized by Google, but I need to include the site name to have consistency. I am using the format Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Site name

                    On-Page Optimization | | lwilkins
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.