A contact phone number: Crawl Audit check 126

Short answer: a phone number in the header or footer tells visitors there's a real business they can reach. Check 126 warns when it can't find one there. UK law doesn't require a phone number on every website, but consumer contract rules ask for one where you have it.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Pass: a tel: link anywhere on the page, or a phone-like number (nine or more digits) in the header or footer.
• Warning: neither.

The digit pattern is loose: a long reference number in the footer can count as a phone number.

What the rules say

• The UK's Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 ask traders selling at a distance to consumers to give their address "and, where available, the trader's telephone number, fax number and e-mail address".
• The E-commerce Regulations 2002 require contact details "including his electronic mail address", but not a phone number.
• Google's rater guidelines: "Contact information and customer service information are extremely important for websites that handle money".

Making it work on phones

Wrap the number in a tel: link, so one tap starts the call (check 110):

<a href="tel:+923060720072">+92 306 072 0072</a>

Use the full international format in the link, and write it the way local customers expect in the visible text.

On devmarde.com

Our number, +92 306 072 0072, is a tap-to-call link on our pages.

This is a summary, not legal advice.

Sources

• legislation.gov.uk, Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, Schedule 2 and E-commerce Regulations 2002, regulation 6, checked 6 October 2026.
• Google, Search Quality Rater Guidelines (11 September 2025).