For any clinic competing for patients in a city, Google Maps is no longer optional. For many people, it is the first place they look when they need to find a clinic near their location.
Clinics that appear in the top results receive the majority of inquiries. Those that rank lower receive far fewer.
So what actually separates the top 10 from the rest?
A study of 100 private dental clinics in Madrid, Spain analyzed Google Business Profile signals and identified the structural differences that consistently separate the highest-ranking clinics from the rest of the market. The Google Maps visibility study for dental clinics contains the full analysis.
Top clinics use more secondary categories
Clinics that appear in the top 10 declare an average of 5.1 secondary categories in their Google Business Profile. Clinics ranked between positions 11 and 30 use an average of 3.3.
Each secondary category expands the types of searches in which a clinic can appear, such as orthodontics, dental implants, or emergency dental care. Without them, the clinic only appears when patients use very general terms such as “dentist,” “dental clinic,” or “dental clinic near me,” which means it may be missing many inquiries from patients looking for specific treatments.
The difference matters because 27% of the clinics analyzed use only their primary category. In practice, this means these clinics are absent from a large portion of the searches happening in their area every day.
They keep their profile active: responding to reviews and posting updates
The data shows a clear difference in activity between higher-ranking clinics and those appearing further down.
When it comes to review responses, 80% of the top-10 clinics regularly respond to patient reviews, compared with 65% in positions 11–30 and 50% in the lowest group. That is a 30-percentage-point difference between the best-ranking and lowest-ranking clinics—far too large to be considered a minor statistical detail.
A similar pattern appears in profile updates. 50% of the top-10 clinics had published at least one update in the previous 30 days, compared with 19% of the lower-ranking clinics. In other words, top-10 clinics are 2.6 times more likely to show recent activity on their profile.
Across both signals, the pattern points to the same conclusion: higher-ranking clinics treat their Google Business Profile as a channel that requires ongoing attention, not as a listing created once and then left unattended.
Review count alone does not explain ranking
One of the study’s most striking findings is that review volume does not reliably predict ranking position.
The clinic with the highest number of reviews in the sample — 2,218 — does not appear among the top 30 results. At the same time, a clinic with fewer than 100 reviews ranks within the top 10.
Reviews are important for patient trust and can influence the decision to book an appointment. However, the data suggests that the structural signals of the profile appear to carry more weight in rankings than the simple volume of reviews.
The common pattern: a stronger profile structure
When all the signals analyzed are considered together, the pattern defining the top 10 is not a single factor, but the combination of several elements that are properly configured and consistently managed.
Well-defined categories, complete profiles, recent activity, and coherence between the Google profile and the clinic’s website.
None of these elements require large budgets. But they do require attention to the factors that truly influence local visibility.
For clinics currently outside the top 10, the data suggests that improving visibility is not about doing more of the same. It is about identifying which structural elements are missing and correcting them.
About this study
Research conducted by José Francisco Ouviña (Frenchy), specialist in local visibility systems for private clinics in Spain. The study analyzed 100 private dental clinics in Madrid based on publicly available Google Business Profile signals.