WhatsApp Click and chat links with phone number will no longer be indexed

WhatsApp has made an adjustment so that links from the Click and Chat function containing the user’s phone number are no longer indexed by search engines. Hundreds of thousands of phone numbers were previously available.

A WhatsApp spokesperson tells TechCrunch that an adjustment has been made so that the links are no longer indexed. These are the links of the Click and Chat function. Those links use the wa.me/phone number format and users can create their own. Such links that were shared publicly could be found through search engines like Google.

A security researcher pointed out earlier this week that hundreds of thousands of WhatsApp users’ phone numbers could be found simply by searching site:wa.me. In the meantime, that search term no longer produces results, which shows that the links are no longer indexed.

WhatsApp responded to the researcher’s findings, but stated that it is not a mistake, because users themselves have shared the links publicly. The messaging service has now made an adjustment.

It is not the first time that indexing WhatsApp phone numbers via the links has come to the fore. WABetaInfo noticed this in February, but at the time it remained quite underexposed and was not followed up. The incident has been widely covered in the media in recent days.