Hi Alex, and thank you for reading the post. My point was more that call tracking service isn't some mythical force that can only be procured in conjunction with CRM, web development, media buying etc. I was highlighting how the business itself can own the numbers if it wants. That being said, there's no denying, as you point out, the immense value of a vendor who can do it all.
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- Jan 12, 2011
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Outstanding input Joe!
The general point here is that measurement of consumer activity cannot be captured at the expense of being found by consumers. I'll go so far as to say if you know you are buying a listings service at $0.30 per VDP and your break-even is $1.00 per VDP, then you don't really need to measure how many phone calls you receive from that service.
Tracking chats and emails is painless to the customer-retailer relationship. Tracking phone calls is not. Ideally, you would want every customer to have your one and only phone number in their phone systems. It's okay to break away from that with a tracking number, but it better be information you can profit from and not just nice to have.
The general point here is that measurement of consumer activity cannot be captured at the expense of being found by consumers. I'll go so far as to say if you know you are buying a listings service at $0.30 per VDP and your break-even is $1.00 per VDP, then you don't really need to measure how many phone calls you receive from that service.
Tracking chats and emails is painless to the customer-retailer relationship. Tracking phone calls is not. Ideally, you would want every customer to have your one and only phone number in their phone systems. It's okay to break away from that with a tracking number, but it better be information you can profit from and not just nice to have.
Thanks for the response Stephen. Unless something with Google Places recently changed, it has been my experience that the phone number matching is the quickest way to get things straight and matching.
I used to place tracking numbers all over the place, at Checkered Flag, and it totally messed our Google Places pages up. As soon as I matched the phone numbers across the review sites, Google Places, and our store landing pages Google linked everything up.
I've only been out of Checkered Flag for a little over 7 months - did something drastic change in that time I'm not aware of?
I used to place tracking numbers all over the place, at Checkered Flag, and it totally messed our Google Places pages up. As soon as I matched the phone numbers across the review sites, Google Places, and our store landing pages Google linked everything up.
I've only been out of Checkered Flag for a little over 7 months - did something drastic change in that time I'm not aware of?
I just did a local search for Checkered Flag in Virginia Beach and noticed a store (Scion) using an 866 i.e. Toll-Free number in the Google Places entry, which even I don't recommend! Perhaps that has something to do with it. Also, were you using some type of third party application to update Google Places in bulk? I've worked on this some myself and had no problems changing the phone number field to a *local* tracking number.
I'm not in charge of their places pages anymore. I know they're struggling with those pages right now. When I was there I switched back and forth between local and tracking 8xx numbers. As long as the numbers matched Google didn't have any issues.
Jeff Kershner asked me to weigh in on the topic of using Call Tracking #'s in one's Google Places profile, and I'm happy to help where I can:
As a Local Search Expert who devotes a lot of time to testing local search ranking factors, I can definitely attest to the fact that it is NOT a good idea to use call tracking numbers in your Places listing.
I understand where Stephen is coming from though, as an advocate of call tracking myself. However, there's a better way to do it.
If you use a smart javascript on your dealer site, then you can configure it to auto-replace your main phone # with a tracking phone number IF AND ONLY IF the referring traffic source happens to be Google.com. This way you will know exactly how many calls you are getting off Google or any other search engine or any other website for that matter. The kicker is that you get to get all that juicy data without compromising or fragmenting your Place page citations.
Just to be clear, the reason having your REAL phone # in your Places listing is important is because Google Places uses 3 data points at the very minimum to 'anchor' your business as a distinct entity. These are the NAP or Name, Address, Phone #. Joe's done a great job at demonstrating how to represent the NAP across the web.
If y'all have anymore questions, please feel free to post here as I'm following this comment thread.
As a Local Search Expert who devotes a lot of time to testing local search ranking factors, I can definitely attest to the fact that it is NOT a good idea to use call tracking numbers in your Places listing.
I understand where Stephen is coming from though, as an advocate of call tracking myself. However, there's a better way to do it.
If you use a smart javascript on your dealer site, then you can configure it to auto-replace your main phone # with a tracking phone number IF AND ONLY IF the referring traffic source happens to be Google.com. This way you will know exactly how many calls you are getting off Google or any other search engine or any other website for that matter. The kicker is that you get to get all that juicy data without compromising or fragmenting your Place page citations.
Just to be clear, the reason having your REAL phone # in your Places listing is important is because Google Places uses 3 data points at the very minimum to 'anchor' your business as a distinct entity. These are the NAP or Name, Address, Phone #. Joe's done a great job at demonstrating how to represent the NAP across the web.
If y'all have anymore questions, please feel free to post here as I'm following this comment thread.
Dev - if you place javascript on your website, to get around a tracking number on your places page, how do you account for the people calling from the phone number listed on your Google Places page that don't visit your website?
- May 1, 2005
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I was going to ask the same. When I "did" have tracking numbers on my Google Places pages - the calls coming from the Places pages we had optimized was impressive. It's good to be able to track the calls coming from the referrals from Google but what about on the Google Places page itself?
Thanks for weighing in, Dev, and nice to meet you. Yes, we absolutely do use the smart JavaScript for displaying dynamic phone numbers on the dealer's *website*, which works wonderfully for a number of reasons, including those laid out here Centuryinteractive: Unleashing the Future of Marketing Today
As far as Google Places goes, it's a best practice to set up the entry with the actual NAP (name, address, phone). Ok, then what?! The listing is established and calls start rolling in. This is the point when our clients swap the number to a local tracking number (i.e. after the Places entry has been created and validated).
We're getting past the point where businesses are just starting to set up their Places entry. Most already have. I'm asserting that the act of taking your existing Places entry and swapping in a local tracking number is a calculated risk many dealers have taken.
Of course, the world can change tomorrow, but so far, these dealers are pleased with the combined benefit of Google Places phone tracking and acceptable findability on the Map.
From a philosophical standpoint, I believe that Google's intention is to make sure you have a physical presence where you say you do. Since that is the case in these examples, we haven't seen any indication of a witch hunt if the phone number changes in Places.
An SEO specialist will never endorse the practice of putting a trackable phone number in Google Places, but I think it's okay to look at the dealer's operational needs in a balanced way (rather than isolating just SEO). As such, weighing the benefits of tracking calls from a significant lead source (Places) against the risks of upsetting Google is something that should be on the table for consideration.
As far as Google Places goes, it's a best practice to set up the entry with the actual NAP (name, address, phone). Ok, then what?! The listing is established and calls start rolling in. This is the point when our clients swap the number to a local tracking number (i.e. after the Places entry has been created and validated).
We're getting past the point where businesses are just starting to set up their Places entry. Most already have. I'm asserting that the act of taking your existing Places entry and swapping in a local tracking number is a calculated risk many dealers have taken.
Of course, the world can change tomorrow, but so far, these dealers are pleased with the combined benefit of Google Places phone tracking and acceptable findability on the Map.
From a philosophical standpoint, I believe that Google's intention is to make sure you have a physical presence where you say you do. Since that is the case in these examples, we haven't seen any indication of a witch hunt if the phone number changes in Places.
An SEO specialist will never endorse the practice of putting a trackable phone number in Google Places, but I think it's okay to look at the dealer's operational needs in a balanced way (rather than isolating just SEO). As such, weighing the benefits of tracking calls from a significant lead source (Places) against the risks of upsetting Google is something that should be on the table for consideration.
The only way around the problem of calls coming from places itself is to start using a trackable local phone number from the start, similar to those offered by RingCentral or Grasshopper. Then build citation data around this new phone number and try to close the gap between calls from places alone and calls from your javascript tracking solution. This is only possible if your front desk monitors the source of the calls.
✨ AI Highlights
A vendor-authored FAQ on call tracking for dealerships sparks a debate about whether to use tracking numbers on Google Places pages, with SEO professionals strongly warning against it due to NAP consistency risks and ranking penalties. The thread splits between dealers who want full call attribution across all channels and local search experts who argue that mismatched tracking numbers damage local search signals far more than any analytics benefit justifies. The key takeaway is that dealers face a real tradeoff: robust call tracking can undermine local SEO, and the safer approach is to reserve tracking numbers for paid sources while keeping a consistent local number on Google Places and citation sites.
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