How Can I Remove Skype Phone Number Recognition?

If Skype is installed, phone numbers are showing up with a Skype icon in some browsers. I don't want to show Skype icons anywhere, ever. Is there any JavaScript or PHP function th

Solution 1:

Use the following CSS to prevent skype from formatting the numbers on your page:

span.skype_pnh_container {display:none !important;}
span.skype_pnh_print_container {display:inline !important;}

edit Skype starts adding numbers in the class names to make them unique. You can solve by using the new Css selectors

span.skype_pnh_container {display:none !important;}
span.skype_pnh_print_container, span[class^="skype_pnh_print_container"] {display:inline !important;} 

Solution 2:

Add this

<metaname="SKYPE_TOOLBAR"content ="SKYPE_TOOLBAR_PARSER_COMPATIBLE"/>

Solution 3:

After searching Google for an answer to this, it seems the issue still persists as we approach the year 2012. Apparently the <meta> tag no longer works, and the Skype plugin is as intrusive as ever - ruining SKU and part numbers in some instances (incorrectly interpreting them as phone numbers).

I was surprised to see so many people misunderstand the desire to disable this from a web developer's point of view, and offer solutions to turn it off by changing browser settings and the like. Of course, we can't really expect our users to do this.

Skype will take something like this:

555-555-5555

And turn it into this:

<spanclass="skype_pnh_print_container">
    555-555-5555
</span><spanclass="skype_pnh_container"dir="ltr"><spanclass="skype_pnh_mark"> begin_of_the_skype_highlighting</span><spanclass="skype_pnh_highlighting_inactive_common"title="Call this phone number in United States of America with Skype: +15555555555"dir="ltr"><spanclass="skype_pnh_textarea_span"><spanclass="skype_pnh_text_span">555-555-5555</span></span></span><spanclass="skype_pnh_mark">end_of_the_skype_highlighting</span></span>

Which looks like this:

Copy and pasting a Skype'd phone number in rich text (like in an email, WYSIWYG or Word document) may end up something like this:

begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 555-555-5555 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Awful, and there's no definitive way to prevent it. The only way I found to deal with this intrusion is by removing the markup with javascript.

Example using jQuery:

window.setTimeout(function() {

    // Remove the class from the wrapper <span> Skype adds to the number
    $('.skype_pnh_print_container').removeClass('skype_pnh_print_container');

    // Remove the generated content from Skype
    $('.skype_pnh_container').remove();

}, 100); // If it doesn't work, set a higher value

You will get a flash of ugliness first, but the setTimeout is necessary because the Skype content is generated just after the page is loaded.

Solution 4:

I tried the (updated) css as suggested by hans, but it doesn't work in the latest version of Chrome (17.0.963.78 m)

It seems the skype plugin has changed again as the code generated by skype (in my version of Chrome) is different from that shown by Madmartigan

I tried putting a comment in the middle of my phone number:

eg:

555<!--stop skype -->-555-5555

And this seems to work. i.e it stops skype recognising it as a phone number. The only thing I'm not sure of is how it affects a Google search for the phone number.

I did run the page through a bot simulator:

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/se-bot-simulator.html

and the comment didn't show up, so I'm hoping it won't affect Google search.

CSS would be the best solution for me but is too much of a moving target, so I prefer the 'comment' approach to the javascript one, but I guess different approaches are easier in different cases.

edit

OK eat my words. Skype is quite smart. If your phone number is prefixed by the words "call us on" rather than "phone" which I initially tested with, then adding a comment inside the number doesn't work.

I tried another approach which is to use the soft hyphen e.g.

555­-555-5555

and this worked.

Solution 5:

That is the skype plugin of your browser. When you install skype software, it automatically adds that plugin for firefox and IE AFAIK.

Just remove the plugin or the software and you are good to go. Anyway, the visitors of your website may have the software installed though.