What Dental Practices Need to Know About Google’s Crackdown on Misrepresentation

If you’ve been paying attention to recent SEO changes, or work with a digital marketing agency that manages your online presence, you may already be aware of an important shift: Google is getting stricter about spam, misrepresentation, and misleading tactics.

Google has rolled out multiple updates that make one thing clear. Accuracy and transparency matter more than ever, especially for local businesses like dental practices.

These updates are worth understanding because they directly impact:

• Your Google Business Profile (GBP) visibility
• Your online reputation and reviews
• Your website compliance and user experience

This isn’t to scare you, but to urge you to audit your online presence now and stay on top of these updates because they impact your practice’s reputation and revenue in the long run.  

Your Google Business Profile Must Represent Your Real Practice, Not a Keyword Strategy

Google recently clarified its stance on “business identity abuse” and this directly affects how dental practices name and represent themselves online.

What’s the issue?

Some businesses attempt to improve rankings by:

• Adding keywords like “Best Dentist Near Me” or “Emergency Dental Care” to their business name
• Keeping remnants of a previous practice’s name, branding, or doctors after purchasing a practice

Google is now explicitly calling this out as a violation.

Why does this matter to you?

We often see this happen unintentionally when:

• A dentist buys an existing practice but doesn’t fully clean up old information
• Listings still show the previous dentist’s name, phone number, or branding
• The practice tries to “optimize” their name instead of using their legal business name

Even if it’s accidental, Google still considers this misrepresentation, and that can lead to:

• Suspended Google Business Profiles
• Lower local rankings
• Loss of visibility in Maps and the local pack

Considering that around 83% of consumers use Google to find business reviews, it’s safe to assume some of your prospective patients rely on this channel to research dentists too. It’s important that you audit your profile to check that you’re in compliance.  

If potential patients can’t see your Google Business Profile in search, then you may have already lost any chance of getting an appointment. And that means they’ll probably consider a competitor of yours.  

What dental practices should do

• Use only your real, legal practice name on Google
• Remove all traces of the old business name when acquiring a practice

Ensure consistency across your:

• Google Business Profile
• Website
• Third-party listings (Healthgrades, Zocdoc, Yelp, etc.)

Google Is Actively Blocking Spam Reviews

Another recent update confirms that Google is doubling down on blocking spam and fake reviews across Google Maps.

Why is this positive?

Google is:

• Preventing fake reviews from ever being published
• Removing suspicious review activity more aggressively
• Monitoring review patterns over time

This helps protect legitimate practices from competitors using questionable tactics.

And if you’re wondering: “Can you remove my old bad reviews?”

Unfortunately, no one, including digital marketing agencies, can remove legitimate negative reviews just because they’re inconvenient.

And any company promising to “wipe bad reviews” is likely using tactics that put your listing at risk.

What does work and what you should do?

If your goal is to rank for implant searches before the seasonal spike, here are some actionable steps:

• Respond courteously and professionally to older negative reviews while following HIPAA compliant policies. You can also follow up with a private message to the reviewer if you have their contact information so you’re protecting their information as well. ‍
• Encourage your patients to leave honest feedback. Your practice can run a review campaign via text and/or email after they leave their appointment, so their experience is still fresh in their minds. Your patient engagement system should have a template for a review campaign that you can edit and schedule out in advance.  ‍
• Focus on generating new, positive reviews consistently. Many patient engagement systems have a reputation management feature that allows you to monitor and manage patient reviews.  

Over time, fresh positive reviews:

• Carry more weight
• Improve your overall star rating
• Push older negative reviews down

This is exactly what Google, and your prospective patients want to see. They want genuine engagement from actual patients, and they expect you to respond to the reviews. According to a 2025 BrightLocal survey, around 38% of consumers expect a review response in 2-3 days.  

If you don’t have a review response process in place yet, now is the time to set one because unanswered reviews can quickly impact how patients perceive your practice.

If you already have one in place, that’s great! Keep being proactive and have some processes and a designated person (or people) to stay on top of managing your reviews.  

Google is Penalizing Spammy Sites as Well

In a separate (but related) update, Google announced penalties for websites that prevent users from using the back button, a known spam tactic used to trap visitors or manipulate behavior.

While this isn’t common in dental practice websites, it reinforces a bigger message:

Google is closely monitoring any behavior that degrades user experience or manipulates trust.

Why should you care?

You don’t need to worry about this unless your site is using:

• Aggressive pop-ups
• Redirect loops
• Third-party tools that override browser behavior

Still, it’s a reminder that websites need to be designed around the user experience and following web compliance rules.  

Google Wants Accuracy, Trust, and User Experience

When you look at these updates together, keep these tips in mind:  

Google is rewarding businesses that:

• Represent themselves accurately
• Build trust authentically
• Put real users (in your case prospective patients) first

And it’s penalizing anything that looks misleading, even if it “used to work.” It’s a reminder that what’s worked in the past will change as SEO and technology evolves.  

For dental practices, that means:

• No keyword-stuffed business names
• No lingering old practice information
• No shortcuts with reviews

Google’s increased focus on spam and accuracy is ultimately positive news for dental practices that play by the rules. It’s still a good idea to audit your online presence regularly to ensure outdated or incorrect information doesn’t unintentionally cause issues down the road. If you haven’t checked recently, you can run a quick check at www.evaluatemypractice.com.

Our SEO and website services are designed specifically for dental practices to ensure your listings, website, and reputation align with Google’s latest guidelines. Learn how our SEO and website services can protect and grow your practice by scheduling a consultation.