Short answer: when an Australian dental practice cannot be found on Google Maps, look first at seven things: a practice name that breaks Google's naming rules, the wrong primary category, dentist profiles competing with the practice, an old listing left behind after a sale or rebrand, hours that say "closed" on a public holiday, details that differ between Google, healthdirect and your website, and how the practice handles reviews under Ahpra's testimonial rules. Most of them take minutes to check.
Google says local results are based mainly on three things, in its help page on improving local ranking: relevance ("how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for"), distance ("how far each business is from the customer who's searching") and prominence ("how well-known a business is"). It also says plainly that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Every check below supports one of those three.
Before you start, rule out the search itself. Distance matters, so a search from home in another suburb tells you little. Search from the street your patients live on, or add the suburb ("dentist Chatswood"), and check on a phone with location turned on. If you see your practice there, the problem is ranking. If you cannot find it even by typing its exact name, the problem is the profile.
1. The practice name breaks Google's rules
Many practices add a suburb or a service to their Google name in the hope of ranking for it: "Smile Studio Dentist Parramatta" or "Bright Dental | Emergency Dentist". Google's guidelines for representing your business say the name "should reflect your business's real-world name" and list location information and service or product information among the things that are not permitted. Anyone can suggest an edit to your profile, and a name that does not match your signage can lead to the name being corrected or the profile being suspended.
Use the name on your sign, your ASIC business name record and your stationery. If you want "Parramatta" in front of patients, put it in your description, your services and your website, where it belongs.
2. The primary category does not match the search
The primary category is one of the main relevance signals you control. A general practice should normally be "Dentist". A practice that only does orthodontics should be "Orthodontist", and a children's practice "Pediatric dentist". Add secondary categories only for services you really offer, such as "Cosmetic dentist" or "Emergency dental service" if you take same-day emergencies. Picking every category that sounds close makes the profile less clear, not more visible.
3. Dentist profiles are competing with the practice
Google allows an individual practitioner to have a profile if they work in a public-facing role. The same guidelines say a practice with several practitioners should have its own profile, separate from each practitioner's, and the practitioner's profile title "should include only the name of the practitioner". Support staff should not have profiles, and one practitioner should not have several profiles for different specialties.
Trouble starts when a dentist profile carries the practice's phone number, categories and reviews and starts to outrank the practice, or when a dentist who left two years ago still has a profile at your address. Search each dentist's name on Maps. If a profile is out of date, update it to point to where they now work, or ask Google to mark it as moved or closed.
4. A sale, merger or rebrand left two listings
When a practice is sold, merged into a group or renamed, the old listing often stays behind. Google's guidelines say a profile may be eligible for rebranding; if the change does not qualify, "it's considered a new business. You must mark the existing Business Profile as closed". The guidelines also say there should be only one profile per business, and not more than one page for each location, in one account or several.
If you are buying a practice, make transfer of the Google profile (owner access, not just manager access) part of settlement. If the old owner has gone quiet, ask Google support to transfer ownership rather than creating a second profile, which splits your reviews and confuses Maps.
5. The hours say "closed" when patients search
If your profile says "Closed" when a patient searches, they are likely to move on to the next practice. Australian public holidays differ by state, so set special hours in your profile for each one you observe. In most of Victoria, Melbourne Cup Day falls on Tuesday 3 November this year (some regional councils swap it for a local show day). Christmas, Boxing Day and the long January weekend come soon after. If you take emergency calls on a public holiday, show those hours instead of closing for the day.
6. Google, healthdirect and your website disagree
Patients and search tools compare what they find. The ADA describes the National Health Services Directory as "Australia's most comprehensive national directory of health services", the one that powers healthdirect Service Finder, and asks practices to keep their details up to date there: search for your service on healthdirect Service Finder, choose "Suggest an edit", and update contact details, opening hours or services.
Do the same with every booking platform profile and your website footer. The name, address and phone number should be written the same way everywhere, and your website should have a page for each main service and a page for each location, so Google can see what your Maps profile claims is true. If you are rebuilding your site, our look at the best dental websites in 2026 shows what strong practice sites put on the first screen.
7. Reviews: grow them without breaking Ahpra rules
Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and reviews are a large part of prominence. Australian practices have an extra rule to respect. Ahpra's testimonial guidance treats comments about clinical aspects (symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, outcomes, or a practitioner's skill) as testimonials, which cannot be used in advertising. It says advertisers are not responsible for removing testimonials on third-party sites they do not control, but that they "should take care if they choose to engage with reviews on third-party websites", because engaging may count as using the testimonial.
In practice that means three things. Reply to reviews politely and generally, without repeating any clinical detail the patient mentioned. Do not copy Google reviews about treatment onto your website or social pages. Feedback about friendly staff, short waits or clear explanations, with no clinical content, can be used, but only complete and unedited, as Ahpra's page explains.
A reply that stays on the safe side looks like this. The review says: "Dr Lee fixed my broken tooth in one visit and it feels perfect." A risky reply repeats the clinical detail: "So glad your crown worked out, Dr Lee loves same-day restorations!" A safer reply keeps it general: "Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are glad you were looked after, and we look forward to seeing you again." It thanks the patient, adds nothing clinical, and still shows people reading your profile that the practice answers.
A 20-minute checklist
- Practice name on Google matches the sign and the ASIC business name
- Primary category is the closest single match ("Dentist" for most general practices)
- Each current dentist has at most one profile, titled with their name only
- No old profile from a previous owner, old name or closed branch at your address
- Special hours set for every public holiday in your state
- healthdirect Service Finder, booking platforms and your website show the same name, address, phone and hours
- Review replies say nothing clinical; no treatment reviews copied to your own site
- Your website has a page for each main service and each location
Edits to a profile do not show at once, so give changes a few weeks before judging them. The same causes show up for allied health too: our guide to why a physio clinic is not showing on Google Maps goes deeper on verification and suspensions.
Want a second opinion?
If you have worked through the list and your practice still does not show, we can look at your profile and website with you and tell you what we see. Read how we work with practices on our page for dentists, or book a free 15-minute call.