The seven mistakes we see on dental practice websites

We look at dental practice websites every day. The same mistakes keep coming back, whoever built the site. None of them is a matter of taste. Each one costs patients, or exposes the dentist to the French Dental Council (Ordre national des chirurgiens-dentistes), and often both. Our dental practice website page describes what a good site contains. This article takes the opposite route: what it must not contain. For each mistake, you will find a one-minute test, what it costs, and the fix in one sentence.

The seven mistakes at a glance

1. One page for every treatment

The test: open your website and look for the "implants" page. If you land on an "our treatments" page that mentions implants, crowns, whitening and orthodontics in ten lines, you have mistake number one. It is the most widespread.

Why it costs patients: a patient does not type "dental treatments." They type "dental implant" and the name of their town. "Implant dentaire" (dental implant) is searched 33,100 times a month in France (Semrush, August 2026). Google then looks for a page devoted to that treatment, with how it works, the number of visits, the recovery. A page that covers everything is the right answer to no question. AI tools do the same: to answer "who places implants in Tours," they look for a page about implants.

Take Cabinet des Tilleuls, a fictional practice. Three dentists, implants every week, a five-page website. The "treatments" page mentions implants in one sentence. On "dental implant" plus the town name, the site does not appear. Patients searching for this treatment do not find this practice, even though it performs it every week.

The fix: one page for each treatment you provide, with how it works, the number of visits, recovery, alternatives and fees.

2. Fees missing, or hidden in a file

The test: start from the home page and look for your fees. If you cannot find them, or if the only way to reach them is a PDF file (a document to download), that is the mistake.

Why it exposes you: article R.4127-240 II of the French Public Health Code requires a dentist who presents their practice to the public, including on a website, to include information on their fees and payment methods. You can read the text on Légifrance. The Dental Council recommends listing the fees for five to ten procedures. A website that says nothing about fees is incomplete under the code.

Why it costs patients: price is the patient's first question. A PDF opens poorly on a phone, and search engines and AI tools rarely read it. A patient who cannot find a figure either calls to ask for a price or does not call at all. Price is one of the twelve things a patient looks for before calling.

The fix: a "Fees" page written as text, linked from the menu and from every treatment page, with the date it was last updated. Our article on fees on a dental practice website gives the template.

3. Content that AI crawlers cannot see

The test: open a page on your website, right-click, and choose "View Page Source." Then search for a sentence from your text using the browser's find function. If it is not there, your content is displayed by a script (a small program that fills in the page after it opens). Second test: if your site runs through Cloudflare, a service that protects websites against attacks, ask your provider whether AI crawlers are allowed through.

Why it costs patients: the crawlers from OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity do not read JavaScript, the language those scripts are written in. They see an empty page. And Cloudflare has blocked AI crawlers by default since July 2025. Many practices are therefore invisible in ChatGPT without knowing it, while 56.6% of French people already use artificial intelligence, including to find a dentist (Arcom and Médiamétrie, April 2026). OpenAI describes its crawlers on a dedicated page: OAI-SearchBot is the one that makes a site appear in ChatGPT, not GPTBot. If you block the former, you do not exist in the answers.

The fix: a site whose text is in the page's code as soon as it opens, and a setting that lets AI crawlers through. Our AI search page explains how we check both.

4. Information that differs from one place to another

The test: open your website, your Google Business Profile and your page on Doctolib (France's leading online booking platform) side by side. Compare four things:

• the practice name, with or without "Dr," with or without the street name;
• the address, down to the street number and the floor;
• the phone number, the same everywhere;
• the opening hours, including the lunch break and Saturdays.

A single difference is enough to have the mistake.

Why it costs patients: Google ranks practices on the map using three official criteria: relevance, distance and prominence (Google help). Contradictory information muddies all three. The search engine no longer knows which version is correct, and it shows you less. AI tools also cross-check several sources before citing a practice. And a patient who sees two phone numbers hesitates.

At Cabinet des Tilleuls, our fictional practice, the website still shows the old number from before a move. The Google Business Profile shows the new one. Patients who call from the website reach an answering machine.

The fix: a single reference version, written on a sheet of paper and copied identically onto the website, the Google Business Profile, Doctolib and directories. Our Google Business Profile for dentists page shows where to start.

5. Patient testimonials or before-and-after photos

The test: look on your website for a sentence in quotation marks signed with a first name, a star rating, or a photo of a smile "before" next to an "after." If you find one, remove it today.

Why it exposes you: article R.4127-215-1 requires communication that is fair and honest, with no third-party testimonials. A Google review copied onto your website is a third-party testimonial. The Dental Council considers before-and-after photos misleading, and they are prohibited in Luxembourg. The guide what the Dental Council allows on a dentist website spells out the line.

Why it costs: you think you are reassuring patients, but you take a risk for zero gain. The reviews already exist on your Google Business Profile, and patients read them there. Copying them adds nothing, and a fellow dentist can report the site.

The fix: replace these elements with what is allowed and reassures just as much: the dentists' backgrounds, the practice's equipment, how each treatment works. The same limits apply to the practice's social media accounts, and we have gathered the texts in our article on social media ethics for dentists.

6. "Website by" and links to companies

The test: scroll all the way to the bottom of your home page and read the footer. "Website by," "powered by," an agency logo, the name of an implant brand or a lab with a link: each one is a sign of the mistake.

Why it exposes you: article R.4127-225 prohibits any advertising that benefits a third party or a commercial company. A link to the agency that built the site is advertising for that agency. So is a link to an implant brand. The fact that many sites do it changes nothing in the text. The dentist is responsible for their website, not the provider. The questions to ask a provider before signing are in our article agency, freelancer or DIY.

Why it costs: that link sends your visitors off your website, right when they were looking for your phone number.

The fix: remove these mentions and links, and ask every provider to agree in writing not to sign your website.

7. A slow, frustrating site on mobile

The test: take your phone, turn off Wi-Fi, and open your website on 4G. Count. Then look for the button to call and the one to book an appointment. If you have to scroll, pinch to zoom, or dig for the number in a menu, you have the mistake.

Why it costs patients: the patient is on their phone, in between two things, often with a tooth that hurts. They want to call. Every second of waiting and every extra tap gives them a reason to go back to the list and open the next practice. Google takes speed and mobile usability into account in its ranking. The cause is often simple: photos that are too heavy, uploaded straight from a camera, and a design loaded with effects.

The fix: lighter images, and a "Call" button and a "Book an appointment" button visible on the first screen on mobile, with no scrolling.

Fix mistakes 2, 5 and 6 first, the ones that involve the code of ethics: they can be sorted out in one session and they remove a risk. If several mistakes stem from how the site was built, the five questions to decide whether to redesign your dental practice website or fix it will settle the matter. The other four take more work, and they are the path to dental SEO. A dental practice blog comes after that. Once the site is back in shape, what remains is to look at what shows up above it when someone searches your name: your Google Business Profile, and often Doctolib.

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