Two-Week Build Update (Feb 5-Feb 16, 2026)

Published on February 16, 2026

TL;DR: We spent the last two weeks on search/indexing fundamentals, guide-page cleanup, and expanding scrape coverage. Most of this was infrastructure work, not a big product feature launch.

What shipped

1. SEO and indexing foundations for phonesupported.dev

We made a set of practical SEO changes so pages can be crawled and indexed more cleanly:

  • Added sitemap.xml route and sitemap classes for static pages, guides, and blog posts.
  • Added robots.txt with sitemap reference.
  • Added canonical tags on page templates.
  • Added canonical host middleware to redirect www hostnames to the canonical host.
  • Added Bing Webmaster verification meta tag.
  • Updated guide links from /guides_v4/... to /guides/....

On Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster specifically: this work is mostly prerequisite plumbing (sitemap/canonical/verification tag). The commit history shows Bing verification explicitly; for Google, the main changes were crawl/index readiness rather than a dedicated verification-tag commit in this 2-week window.

2. Guide-page SEO/content fixes

We fixed a few structural issues on guide pages:

  • Fixed duplicate H1 output for companies with multiple phone numbers.
  • Shortened guide page titles and aligned wording with the "phone tree" framing.
  • Stopped showing companies that have no parsed menus.

These are not flashy changes, but they reduce indexing noise and improve page quality.

3. New company scrape coverage

New company snapshots added in this period included:

  • City University of Seattle
  • Fidelity Investments
  • Fifth Third Bank
  • NYS DOH MMIS Eligibility Inquiry System
  • Starbucks
  • McDonald's
  • Nationwide Insurance
  • Travelers Insurance
  • Truist Bank

There was also catalog cleanup during this period as we filtered what should be live.

4. Transcription cost and reliability update

We moved more transcription work to a local Whisper setup to reduce ongoing API costs while keeping transcript quality usable for menu mapping.

  • Shifted transcription toward local Whisper processing to lower per-call cost
  • Currently using Whisper Turbo model size
  • Kept fallback flexibility so transcription is less brittle during provider/API issues

5. Content and distribution

  • Added this blog slot's first draft with industry voice-first charts and linked guides.
  • Added a LinkedIn account presence in the site footer.

What was not solved

  • Scrape coverage increased, but "reach a human" is still not a stable KPI by itself.
  • Search performance impact from recent SEO changes is still too early to call.

Current snapshot

As of February 16, 2026:

  • 52 live company phone trees on the site.
  • 78 company profiles currently tracked.

What we will likely focus on next

  • Keep adding scrapeable companies while pruning broken/low-value entries.
  • Continue tightening technical SEO (titles, metadata consistency, canonical correctness).
  • Improve transparency on guide pages when paths are blocked by auth/personal-data prompts.

Team PhoneSupported