Lakefront Family Dentistry Blog

Can You Really Trust Online Directory Dentist Reviews?

Dentist Directory Sites Make Money From Your Searches and Dentist Listings

The Internet offers consumers a lot of great consumer sites when looking for a product or service. When we think back just 10 years ago, these online review sites didn’t even exist as they do today. Unfortunately, all types of reviews are not created equal.

Even if you shop on Amazon and purchase products based on consumer reviews, you have to make sure and read each person’s profile to see if they’ve made more than one or two reviews. Then, you have to check other reviews and see if they are identical, or if they look “suspicious.” Sadly, companies pay people overseas to write “fake reviews” about their products so they can make more money.

What You Should Really Look for When Choosing the Best Dentist for You and Your Family

So where are the reliable directories, and how do we tell the real ones from the impostors? That’s a great question. Any site where a dentist has to join and pay a membership fee, or where they have to pay for a lead is biased. Without “naming names,” one of the most popular dentist sites that has an 800 number in their website name makes dentists pay for each lead. The fees are quite substantial, actually.

How Reliable is it for you to Seek out a Dentist on a Local Dentist Directory if the Dentist has to Pay for it?

Obviously, the best referral is through word of mouth advertising. When you don’t have a referral, we all go online and search for a dentist, then combine it with the city in which you reside. If you don’t like the selection of dentists in your own city, then you just modify your search with another city name, then add, dentist, as the additional term.

When your search results yield a result of paid directories, be careful of your selection. Make sure you check the free, legitimate business listings first! The two most legitimate listings that have extremely stringent criteria are Google Plus Local Business Listings and Yelp. Why? Because these are carefully monitored with very strict rules.

Google has over 200 algorithm checks for websites alone, so you can bet they take their local business listing reviews seriously. Yelp will filter a review if you are not an active Yelper or only signed up to give one review and then never use their system again. This is a bit too strict, because actual patient reviews are never seen, but you can bet when a dentist has a Yelp or Google Local Business Listing review, they are 100 percent real.

Website Reviews on Dental Sites

Dentists get unsolicited testimonials almost every day from patients, and we are no exception. Our happy patients send over an email and let the dental practice know how ecstatic they or their family members were meeting Dr. Derek B. Hauser, DDS, and his amazing staff. These cannot be posted on Google or Yelp, so they get added to our website. Lakefront Family Dentistry actually has hundreds and hundreds of patient reviews that continue to pour in, but we list a good amount of them on our site for you to read so you can get a feel for how our real patients feel about our services, dentist and staff. Our reviews are equally credible, because they come in completely unsolicited!

Paid Dentist Reviews and Dentist Directories – Educated Patients are the Best Patients

Now that you know how online review directories work, where providers can only get a lead if they are willing to pay anywhere from $50 – $300 per lead, versus free listings like Google, Yelp, and our own legitimate business reviews; you can make a much more educated and informed decision to select the best dental practitioner for you and your family.

If you’d like to check out our Google Business Listing or Yelp Reviews, just click on the icons at the top of our site to see what reviews our patients have said about Dr. Hauser and our team. We always appreciate your feedback, and it helps new patients decide whether or not they would like to give us a try, too!

If you have any questions about Lakefront Family Dentistry, please give us a call at (951) 244-9495 or make an appointment online today. Our patients are part of our extended family, and we value their time and trust.

Dr. Hauser, DDS, Proudly Serves: Canyon LakeCoronaLake ElsinoreMenifeeMurrietaSun CityTemeculaWildomar, and Riverside County, CA