Phone number as URL?

[foxxr]

Here is a new one for you folks. I have a new prospect I am meeting with that has his 7-digit phone number as his URL. His domain has been live since 2005. He needs plenty of SEO advice, but I am perplexed on advising him on this odd URL.

Any suggestions?

 

[MikelZaremba]

I'm looking forward to seeing someone chime in on this as well. At first thought I think it's genius.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hmmm, weird. Some thoughts...

Phone as URL would be hard for customers to remember I would think as opposed to a brand or keyword.

I can just hear staff on the phone. Yes Mr. customer just go to:
www.5498920.com and all our forms are right there.

Ya know how someone leaves their number on voice mail and you sometimes have to play it back a couple times to make sure you got the numbers right?

As far as Google and NAP, I don't think she's used to looking for a phone # match in a URL and it would not be formatted either. So I think she'd just see it as a string of numbers.

But my final thought is, if it's an aged domain and is kinda ranking, I'm not sure I'd advise starting over with a new domain. On the other hand if it's not ranking and it's all a mess, maybe tearing it apart and starting over from scratch would be better in the long run.

 

[foxxr]

Thanks Linda for the advice. I share the same thoughts. It's odd to have that as the URL, but it has been around and has a PR3. I haven't looked at his analytics yet.

My only other concern about a URL like 9903303.com (not his actual) is that it looks spammy. This is local attorney with only 28 pages on his site, so 301's would not be too difficult.