Methodology and data: State of Dental Google Presence 2026
How the published dental numbers were produced, so anyone can check them: how practices were found, which sources and formulas were used, how reviews were classified, how every headline figure was verified and what the data cannot tell you.
- 2,318 US dental practices across 20 metros; every city has at least 64 practices.
- Review pace, reply rates and themes from a 120-practice review subsample (about 3,000 reviews).
- Every headline figure re-derived from the raw rows (reproduction check below).
- Aggregates only: no practice is named.
- Every practice welcome — retainers from $499/mo, Goals-Driven engagements, Performance-Linked Payout Models available.
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“They were able to get all my ideas and work with me over a period of three to four months and create this amazing website. It's super customized, very modern, and it incorporates all the elements that I had wanted — the patient portal, nice pictures, a very interactive website, patient reviews. I would highly recommend their company to anyone who wants to make an excellent website.”
How the numbers were produced
Prepared 2026-09-28. 2318 US Dental profiles across 20 metros.
Discovery
- Search terms: "dentist", "dental clinic", "cosmetic dentist", "orthodontist".
- Metros: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Washington DC, Las Vegas, Nashville, Orlando, Scottsdale (25 km bias each).
- Kept a result if its name or Google category matched the specialty; dropped clearly unrelated categories and non-operational listings.
Sources & fields
- Profile data (rating, review count, categories, website, phone, hours, days open, weekend, attributes) from Google via SearchApi.
- Reviews (text, date, owner-reply) from SearchApi for a per-specialty subsample.
Derived measures
- Review velocity = reviews dated in the last 6 months / 6 (national median).
- Owner reply rate = share of a profile's pulled reviews with an owner response (national mean).
- Review-count bands: <50, 50-199, 200-499, 500+.
- Visibility 0-100: relevance (categories/attributes) + review health (volume/rating/velocity/replies) + freshness (hours) + answer-visibility (review keywords), re-weighted to 100; entity authority excluded (no public signal).
Review themes
- Each review classified by Google Gemini into one theme + sentiment. Themes: results, staff/bedside manner, price/value, pain/comfort, wait time/scheduling, cleanliness, booking/communication, upselling, before/after outcome.
- Theme percentages are directional (single automated pass; a second independent pass is included as validation).
Limitations
- Discovery seeded on 20 large metros (under-represents small towns).
- Review velocity is capped by the per-profile review pull limit.
- The review subsample is national; per-city review-theme splits are not reliable.
- Aggregates only; no business is named alongside any figure; groups under 10 are not published.
Reproduction check
Verified 2026-09-28. This recomputes every headline figure directly from the raw 2318 profile rows and compares it to the scan's own stored analysis. All figures trace to raw data; there is no separately published figure to reconcile against for this specialty (unlike med spa).
| Metric | Recomputed | Scan stored | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| avg rating | 4.79 | 4.79 | MATCH |
| median rating | 4.9 | 4.9 | MATCH |
| median reviews | 319.5 | 321 | MISMATCH |
| % website | 97.2 | 97.2 | MATCH |
| % weekends | 25.5 | 25.5 | MATCH |
| band <50 | 9.1 | 9.1 | MATCH |
| band 50-199 | 22.4 | 22.4 | MATCH |
| band 200-499 | 37.5 | 37.5 | MATCH |
| band 500+ | 30.9 | 30.9 | MATCH |
Note: recompute and the scan use the same formulas on the same rows, so exact matches confirm the stored analysis is faithful to the raw data (no drift, no manual edits). Completeness fields here are all from one consistent SearchApi source (no mixed-source issue).
The dataset
| scope | metric | value | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| national | avg rating | 4.79 | 2318 |
| national | median rating | 4.9 | 2318 |
| national | median review count | 319.5 | 2318 |
| national | pct with website | 97.2 | 2318 |
| national | pct with phone | 99.6 | 2318 |
| national | pct with hours | 98.4 | 2318 |
| national | pct with secondary category | 71.9 | 2318 |
| national | pct open weekend | 25.5 | 2318 |
| national | avg days open per week | 4.8 | 2318 |
| national | pct reviews under 50 | 9.1 | 2318 |
| national | pct reviews 50 199 | 22.4 | 2318 |
| national | pct reviews 200 499 | 37.5 | 2318 |
| national | pct reviews 500 plus | 30.9 | 2318 |
| national | visibility mean | 73 | 2318 |
| national | visibility median | 75 | 2318 |
| national | median new reviews per month | 5.17 | 120 |
| national | avg owner reply rate | 0.49 | 120 |
| Dallas | median review count | 316 | 129 |
| Dallas | avg rating | 4.83 | 129 |
| Dallas | pct with website | 98.4 | 129 |
| Dallas | pct open weekend | 27.9 | 129 |
| Washington DC | median review count | 259.5 | 128 |
| Washington DC | avg rating | 4.79 | 128 |
| Washington DC | pct with website | 95.3 | 128 |
| Washington DC | pct open weekend | 21.9 | 128 |
| New York | median review count | 441 | 127 |
| New York | avg rating | 4.78 | 127 |
| New York | pct with website | 100 | 127 |
| New York | pct open weekend | 48.8 | 127 |
| Miami | median review count | 262 | 127 |
| Miami | avg rating | 4.85 | 127 |
| Miami | pct with website | 94.5 | 127 |
| Miami | pct open weekend | 26.8 | 127 |
| Los Angeles | median review count | 240 | 126 |
| Los Angeles | avg rating | 4.79 | 126 |
| Los Angeles | pct with website | 96 | 126 |
| Los Angeles | pct open weekend | 48.4 | 126 |
| Chicago | median review count | 356 | 123 |
| Chicago | avg rating | 4.77 | 123 |
| Chicago | pct with website | 100 | 123 |
| Chicago | pct open weekend | 42.3 | 123 |
| Houston | median review count | 408 | 123 |
| Houston | avg rating | 4.81 | 123 |
| Houston | pct with website | 95.9 | 123 |
| Houston | pct open weekend | 38.2 | 123 |
| San Diego | median review count | 250 | 123 |
| San Diego | avg rating | 4.76 | 123 |
| San Diego | pct with website | 95.1 | 123 |
| San Diego | pct open weekend | 18.7 | 123 |
| Boston | median review count | 231.5 | 120 |
| Boston | avg rating | 4.74 | 120 |
| Boston | pct with website | 100 | 120 |
| Boston | pct open weekend | 32.5 | 120 |
| Denver | median review count | 351.5 | 120 |
| Denver | avg rating | 4.78 | 120 |
| Denver | pct with website | 97.5 | 120 |
| Denver | pct open weekend | 12.5 | 120 |
| Las Vegas | median review count | 424 | 120 |
| Las Vegas | avg rating | 4.83 | 120 |
| Las Vegas | pct with website | 98.3 | 120 |
| Las Vegas | pct open weekend | 30 | 120 |
| Atlanta | median review count | 357 | 119 |
| Atlanta | avg rating | 4.75 | 119 |
| Atlanta | pct with website | 95.8 | 119 |
| Atlanta | pct open weekend | 10.1 | 119 |
| Seattle | median review count | 219 | 117 |
| Seattle | avg rating | 4.78 | 117 |
| Seattle | pct with website | 98.3 | 117 |
| Seattle | pct open weekend | 12.8 | 117 |
| Orlando | median review count | 388 | 117 |
| Orlando | avg rating | 4.78 | 117 |
| Orlando | pct with website | 95.7 | 117 |
| Orlando | pct open weekend | 13.7 | 117 |
| Philadelphia | median review count | 293.5 | 116 |
| Philadelphia | avg rating | 4.77 | 116 |
| Philadelphia | pct with website | 94 | 116 |
| Philadelphia | pct open weekend | 17.2 | 116 |
| San Francisco | median review count | 231 | 114 |
| San Francisco | avg rating | 4.73 | 114 |
| San Francisco | pct with website | 96.5 | 114 |
| San Francisco | pct open weekend | 23.7 | 114 |
| Austin | median review count | 378 | 112 |
| Austin | avg rating | 4.84 | 112 |
| Austin | pct with website | 99.1 | 112 |
| Austin | pct open weekend | 13.4 | 112 |
| Scottsdale | median review count | 393 | 103 |
| Scottsdale | avg rating | 4.86 | 103 |
| Scottsdale | pct with website | 100 | 103 |
| Scottsdale | pct open weekend | 25.2 | 103 |
| Nashville | median review count | 406.5 | 90 |
| Nashville | avg rating | 4.81 | 90 |
| Nashville | pct with website | 94.4 | 90 |
| Nashville | pct open weekend | 10 | 90 |
| Phoenix | median review count | 379.5 | 64 |
| Phoenix | avg rating | 4.77 | 64 |
| Phoenix | pct with website | 100 | 64 |
| Phoenix | pct open weekend | 26.6 | 64 |
What US dental practice patients expect, and where they don't get it
Findings from our study of 2,318 US dental practices across 20 metros and about 3,000 patient reviews. Read the findings below, or download the complete report.
Related pages from the US team
The full study
State of Dental Google Presence 2026.
Free PDF report
Patient experience and city benchmarks.
Benchmarks for 9 specialties
Compare specialties.
Dental marketing, USA
How we help US dental practices.
Every practice welcome — Goals-Driven engagements from $499/mo
We benchmark your last 90 days, agree monthly goals with you, and track them live on Ichelon Agency OS with a report every Monday. Performance-Linked Payout Models are available. Our US leadership is based in Dallas, and strategy calls run in US business hours.
Common questions
Can I download the data?
Yes. The aggregate dataset is available as a CSV on this page under CC BY 4.0. It contains no business-identifying information.
How accurate is the review theme classification?
Themes were assigned by a language model and a second independent pass was used as validation. Counts are directional; small themes such as upselling (46 mentions) should be read as signals.
Why is the median review count 319.5?
The recomputation from raw rows gives 319.5, slightly different from the 321 stored by the original scan; we publish the recomputed figure.
A note on this guide: it explains marketing practice, not legal advice. Rules on privacy, advertising and insurance change and vary by state, so confirm anything compliance-related with your own counsel.
Questions about the data?
Book a 30-minute call with the US team. We're happy to walk through the method or compare your own profile with the study.