How to Extract Phone Numbers from Maps

Each business can have phone numbers in three columns. One comes from Maps, and two come from the business's own website, read in the same run.

Website phones can repeat the listing's own number, written differently: (214) 555-0142 on Maps is 2145550142 from the website. Extensions such as "ext. 12" are left off, and dates, short numbers and repeated digits are never taken for phones.

Businesses that share a website, such as a chain's locations, all get that website's numbers. How the websites are read explains which pages it reads and what it leaves out.

The Phone column is the number a business publishes on its listing for customers to call, which is usually its main line. The extension doesn't look up anyone's mobile number, and it adds no column saying whether a number is a mobile or a landline.

A one-person business often lists a mobile as its business number, so mobiles do turn up, as the number the business chose to publish. Nothing in the list tells you which numbers they are.

If what you need is an owner's personal mobile, this isn't the tool for it. Maps lists businesses, not people, and a person's number comes under privacy and calling rules that a business line doesn't; the rules on calling cover both.

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   Step 1: Ask for the businesses

   Open the side panel, choose Chat and type the trade and the town, such as "Find 100 plumbers in Denver". Or search Maps yourself, open the Maps tab and click Collect list.

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   Step 2: Keep contact details on

   Contact details are on by default, so each business's website is read during the run for Website phones and Faxes. The Phone column comes from Maps either way.

   • To skip the websites for one chat search, add "no emails" to the request.
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   Step 3: Let it run

   The panel counts the businesses as they arrive. Click Stop at any time, and what it found so far is kept.

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   Step 4: Open the list

   In the History tab, click View results to open the list on the results page. A cell with several numbers shows the first one and a +N more button.

For one trade across many towns, Bulk collects a list of Maps searches in one run, with the same phone columns.

Some listings show no phone number, so their Phone cell stays empty. A Phone cell can also be empty when the business's details didn't load while it was collected.

When Maps stops answering during a long run, the extension waits longer between businesses until details load again. A business whose details never loaded keeps an empty Phone, so open its Map URL to check, and collect the search again if many are empty.

Website phones are empty when the business has no website, its website lists no number, or the site couldn't be read, such as one that shows a robot check. A directory page given as the website, such as a Yelp listing, isn't read, because its numbers aren't the business's own.

On the results page, tell chat which rows to keep. The other rows are hidden, not deleted, and a download has only what the page shows.

The setting Skip businesses you can't reach, in Settings → Results, is different. It leaves out only businesses with no phone, email and website, so it keeps a business that has an email but no phone.

For a call list in your own area, finding local business leads covers the rest of the job, and sorting by rating and reviews puts the best-rated businesses first.

Download the Excel file for calling. Maps Scraper Pro writes phone numbers into it as text, so they open exactly as collected, with any zero or + at the start.

A CSV file holds the numbers as written too, but Excel changes them when you open the file by double-clicking it. Excel turns a cell of digits into a number, which drops a zero at the start and can show a long number in scientific notation, as Microsoft's page on leading zeros explains.

To open a CSV in Excel without that, import it with the phone columns set to text. These steps follow Microsoft's page.

1. 1

   Step 1: Start an import

   In a new workbook, open the Data tab and choose From Text/CSV, then pick the file.

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   Step 2: Open the query editor

   In the preview, click Edit rather than Load, so the query editor opens.

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   Step 3: Set the phone columns to Text

   Click the Phone column's header and Ctrl+click Website phones and Faxes. Then choose Home → Transform → Data Type → Text, and Replace current.

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   Step 4: Load the table

   Click Close & Load. The numbers keep every digit as written.

Watch out: Don't save a CSV from Excel after opening it by double-clicking: the changed numbers replace the ones you collected.

Many dialers and CRMs want every number in one format, often E.164, from the ITU's international numbering plan. Twilio's glossary describes it: a +, the country code, then the number, digits only and 15 digits at most, such as +12145550142.

Maps Scraper Pro doesn't rewrite numbers, so Phone keeps the listing's format and Website phones keeps the website's digits. These steps put both into E.164 in Excel, for US and Canadian numbers.

1. 1

   Step 1: Split cells with several numbers

   Select the Website phones column and use Text to Columns on the Data tab. Choose Delimited, type | as the other delimiter, and set the column data format to Text, so each number gets a column of its own.

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   Step 2: Keep only the digits

   Select the Phone column and use Find and Replace (Ctrl+H) to replace each of (, ), - and the space with nothing. (214) 555-0142 becomes 2145550142.

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   Step 3: Add the country code

   In a new column, enter =IF(LEFT(A2,1)="+",A2,"+1"&A2), where A2 holds the digits, and copy it down. Numbers that already start with + keep their own country code.

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   Step 4: Remove repeated numbers

   If your dialer takes one number per row, put the Phone and Website phones numbers in one column, then use Remove Duplicates on the Data tab. A number found on both Maps and the website then appears once.

Check a few numbers by hand before you import the file. Exporting a Maps search to Excel covers importing the rest of the list into a CRM.

Maps Scraper Pro works the same way in any country Maps covers. The Phone column holds the number as that country's listings show it, which is often the country's own format, without the country code.

Website phones are checked against a country's numbering plan when the extension can tell which country the website is in. It tells from the site's country domain, such as .co.uk, from international numbers on the page, or from the page's language setting. When it can't tell, a number is kept only when the page labels it as a phone or writes it in a phone format.

To call or import numbers from another country, add the country code and drop the 0 that many countries put in front of a number dialled inside the country. In the UK, a Manchester number written 0161 xxx xxxx becomes +44161xxxxxxx.

• The extension doesn't add country codes, so the cleaning steps above need the right code for each country.
• It doesn't say whether a number is a mobile or a landline.

Maps Scraper Pro collects the numbers businesses publish for customers, from their listings and their own websites. It doesn't find a person's number, and it doesn't say which numbers are mobiles.

Calling and texting businesses has rules of its own, which differ by country and by the kind of number. The rules on calling businesses explain what to check before you start.