Is there an SEO benefit, a search ranking benefit, to putting numbers in your headlines? Such as the “10 best reasons to put 10 best in your headlines” or more practically, “10 best toilet seats.” That was a question I found on Reddit, a question I never really touched on here.

The question was “Is there an SEO based rationale for having more numbers in a round up (e.g. 10 best toilet seats > 5 best toilet seats)?” Like, don’t put the number 5 when you can put the number 10.

This SEO asked, “For example – If I’m writing about the ‘best toilet seat’ and there’s articles with 11 best and 12 best does that mean you’d write ’12 best’ or ’13 best’ to one up everyone? From a helpful perspective it seems like this is the opposite of helpful content since it’s paradox of choice and/or decision fatigue.”

The answer is, I really doubt it. I mean, users might prefer more reasons to fewer reasons but do search engines care if there is a 10 or 11 in your headline? Of course, that goes back to writing for humans and not search engines.

Which is the response John Mueller from Google said “I like this take” to on Reddit. Here is a screenshot of that:

What do you all think?

Oh, no, I am not giving you the ten best reasons to put 10 best in your headlines – sorry…

Forum discussion at Reddit.