How to get your dental practice recommended by AI

To get a dental practice recommended by AI, start with your own website and your Google listing. When we asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini for a dentist in 5 UK towns, practice websites were the most-cited source on two of the three assistants. ChatGPT pulled its details from Google-style listing cards. Claude and Gemini also leaned on Three Best Rated, WhatClinic, Yelp and Top Doctors.

Here's what each assistant did, and what I'd change if I ran the practice.

What we tested

On 2 October 2026 WhereInAI asked ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the 3 questions our scan generates for a dentist, in 5 towns: Bath, Leeds, Norwich, Swindon and Exeter.

• best dentist in [town], UK
• recommend a good dentist in [town], UK
• who is the top rated dentist in [town], UK

That's 45 answers, 15 from each assistant, all with web search switched on. We added "UK" because, without a country, the assistants are free to pick a Bath or a Norwich in America, and in an earlier test Gemini did exactly that. Every answer is stored, so these figures can be rechecked.

One limit up front. We used the versions developers get (GPT-4.1 mini, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, each with its own web search). The ChatGPT app on a patient's phone runs a bigger model and knows roughly where they are, so its exact list will differ. What follows is the pattern WhereInAI measures.

Where each assistant looked

Compare that with plumbers, where Claude sent 85% of its links to directories. For dentists it was 60%, and Gemini linked practice websites more often than directories. In this sample, a dental practice's own site carried more weight than a tradesperson's did.

ChatGPT reads your Google listing and your website

In 14 of 15 answers ChatGPT printed a card for each practice with a category, star rating, review count and address. That's the layout of a Google Business Profile. Every other link it gave went to the practice's own website.

So for ChatGPT the job is your Google listing and your site. I've written up the Google side in Does your Google Business Profile affect ChatGPT?.

The directories Claude and Gemini read

The two assistants split. Claude went to Yelp and Top Doctors; Gemini went to WhatClinic. Three Best Rated was the only site both used heavily. It names 3 practices per town and says it picks them with a 50-point inspection, so it isn't a listing you can buy your way onto.

The NHS comes up, mostly from Claude

Claude mentioned the NHS in 6 of its 15 answers, ChatGPT and Gemini in 3 each.

Claude also refused 3 of the 5 "recommend a good dentist" questions. It didn't search. It said it had no database of dentists and pointed the patient to the NHS website and Google reviews instead. Asked "best dentist" or "top rated dentist", the same Claude searched and named practices.

If you take NHS patients, I'd make sure your NHS listing is current. I can't show that Claude read it in these answers, but it's where Claude sent people when it wouldn't answer.

More agreement than other trades, still not much

Across the 5 towns the assistants linked to 60 practice websites.

• 35 were linked by only one assistant.
• 8 were linked by all three, including Clarendon Dental Spa in Leeds, Inspired Dental Care in Exeter and Smiles Centre in Swindon.

For plumbers only 1 business in 5 towns got linked by all three. Practices with a strong website seem to reach all three assistants more easily. That's an inference from one day's answers, and I'd want more runs before leaning on it.

What I'd do as a practice

Read this as a sensible order of work, based on one day in 5 towns.

1. Get your Google Business Profile complete. Category, opening hours, phone, website link, a description that says whether you take NHS patients, and real reviews. That's the card ChatGPT printed in 14 of 15 answers.
2. Put the answers patients look for on your website, in plain words. Treatments, prices or price ranges, NHS or private, the town and area you serve. ChatGPT linked practice sites 70 times, and Gemini 54.
3. Don't block the AI crawlers. ChatGPT's search crawler is OAI-SearchBot. A robots.txt or firewall that blocks it keeps ChatGPT off your site.
4. Claim your profiles on WhatClinic, Top Doctors and Doctify, and fix your Yelp listing. Those are the pages Claude and Gemini read. Keep the practice name, address and phone identical everywhere.
5. Keep your NHS listing current if you take NHS patients.

For the general UK directories, TownDirectory gives you a free listing, and CitationHQ will submit you to the main directories for you. Both are run by the same company as WhereInAI.

The limits of this

One day, 5 towns, one answer per question. Assistants change without notice, and the consumer apps run different models from the ones tested here. Practices in other towns will see different names. The sources were steadier: Three Best Rated and WhatClinic turned up in every town.

To see who each assistant names for your practice, run a free scan. We ran the same test for plumbers and garages. For why a rival practice keeps getting named and you don't, see Why AI recommends your competitors and not you.