Will Phone # On Adwords Effect Rank On Google+ Local?

[jhoecannon]

I have been told that to get ranked in the top 7 for Google+ Local (Maps), that it's very important that Google only finds one phone # for your place of business...if the search engines find more than 1 phone number it confuses the search engines and negatively influences ranking.



If this is true, if a business wants to track phone numbers (from potential customers who have clicked on their Google Adwords ads) by using a telephone tracking system which utilizes a unique phone number ( a phone # different from the business's original phone #), will this effect the ability of the business to rank on Google+ Local?



If a business wants to rank in the top 7 for Google+ Local, should they avoid using a different phone # on their Google Adwords advertising?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Google doesn't scrape or index Adwords ads so you're totally fine to use tracking numbers on them. Same with Bing Ads.

However, you can't use phone #s in the ad text any more with Adwords so make sure you utilize call extensions.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Great question. I'd say you're safe. Third-party data-providers (like InfoGroup) aren't going to scrape the content of a PPC ad - let alone an ad that has the phone number in an AdWords call extension. Nor would Google: most advertisers don't include a phone number in the ad text or in a call extension, and Google knows that businesses need to split-test ads and so forth, so it's not going to be looking to ads as a trusted source of local-biz data.

The only thing I'd suggest not doing is going into AdWords and "connecting" your Google+Local account/location to your AdWords account (AKA setting up a location extension). If you were using the same phone number in your ads that you use on your Google+Local listing, that would probably be fine, but it doesn't sound like that's the case here.

---------- Post Merged at 09:32 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 09:30 PM ----------

@Joy

Ah, I forgot that you can only have a call extension now - thanks!