We Audited 5 NYC Dentist Websites for SEO and AI Search Readiness
Updated
We ran INDEXED.'s full audit on the homepages of five New York City dental practices. Scores ranged from 77 to 87, and the problems that kept coming up were broken structured data, heavy pages and thin local trust signals.
On 2 November 2026, we ran INDEXED.'s full audit (68 to 73 checks across On-Page, Technical, AEO, AI Readiness, E-E-A-T, Clarity and Homepage) against the homepage of five dental practices in New York City. The five were hand-picked, not a random sample, and the practice names are withheld on purpose: these are small local businesses and the point is the pattern, not the people. Scores and issues are the tool's direct output, not estimates. Several checks (content length, headings, page size) read the raw HTML response, so a heavily script-rendered page can look thinner than it does in a browser. One of the five carries Product markup, so the audit also applied store checks (shipping, returns, price visibility) that do not fit a dental practice. We left those checks out of every finding below. INDEXED has since been fixed so that service businesses are no longer given store checks.
5
Sites audited
82
Average score
87
Highest
77
Lowest
| Site | Score | Top issue |
|---|---|---|
| Practice A | 87 | 28 images missing alt text; title is 74 characters |
| Practice B | 84 | Two H1 tags; heading levels skipped |
| Practice C | 81 | Two-word headline with no action verb; heading levels skipped |
| Practice D | 80 | No H1 tag found; 404-character meta description |
| Practice E | 77 | Homepage content too thin (about 165 words) |
Scores by category
| Site | Checks | On-page | Technical | AEO | AI readiness | E-E-A-T | Clarity | Homepage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice A | 54/68 | 86 | 86 | 65 | 75 | 65 | 100 | 100 |
| Practice B | 58/73 | 82 | 79 | 100 | 75 | 69 | 100 | 69 |
| Practice C | 56/68 | 85 | 94 | 100 | 100 | 53 | 66 | 69 |
| Practice D | 56/68 | 82 | 89 | 65 | 90 | 88 | 57 | 100 |
| Practice E | 49/68 | 93 | 79 | 35 | 80 | 19 | 100 | 31 |
| Average | 86 | 85 | 73 | 84 | 59 | 85 | 74 |
What stood out
1. Scores clustered tightly, but each site failed differently
The five scores ranged from 77 to 87 (average 82), yet each site's list of failed checks was different. Even the highest scorer failed 14 of its 68 checks, and the lowest failed 19. A good overall number can sit on top of fixable problems, so treat the score as a starting point, not a verdict.
2. Structured data was the biggest hidden problem
Only 2 of 5 homepages had structured data that works. One had none at all, and two had a JSON-LD block that fails to parse, which Google and AI tools silently skip. One of those two also had two Organization blocks naming different things, so machines cannot tell which name is the real one. A broken block looks like it is working while doing nothing.
3. Heavy pages
4 of 5 homepages send more than 100 KB of HTML before anything else loads, at 265, 420, 424 and 473 KB. Common causes are inline scripts, embedded SVGs and page builder output. Only one stayed under the limit.
4. Image descriptions and dimensions
3 of 5 had images with no alt text (28, 16 and 12 images). 4 of 5 had images with no width and height set (24, 19, 3 and 2 images), which makes the page jump around while it loads.
5. Titles and descriptions drift out of range
2 of 5 page titles were 73 and 74 characters, well over the 50 to 60 that fit in a search result. 3 of 5 meta descriptions ran past the 150 characters AI tools tend to read: 158 and 164 characters, and one of 404 characters that lists neighborhood after neighborhood.
6. Everyone says "best" or "top", few prove it
4 of 5 use "best" or "top" in the title, headline or description, and 3 of 5 were flagged for self-praise with no link to an outside review source. AI tools treat a business's own superlatives as marketing and look to third parties for the verdict.
7. Local trust signals separated the strongest from the weakest
E-E-A-T was the weakest category, averaging 59/100 against 82 overall. 2 of 5 showed no Google Business Profile and 2 of 5 had no LinkedIn link. The one site with no Organization schema, no Business Profile and no LinkedIn link scored 19/100 on E-E-A-T. The other four scored 53 to 88.
8. Headings were chosen for size, not structure
3 of 5 had heading problems. One had no H1 at all, one had two H1 tags, and one had a two-word H1 with no action verb. All three also skipped heading levels, for example an H4 straight after an H2.
9. The AI basics were already in place
All 5 allow AI crawlers in robots.txt and all 5 open with a direct answer. The AI gaps were elsewhere: 2 of 5 lack a definition-style sentence near the top ("[Name] is a..."), which AI tools often lift for "what is" answers, and 3 of 5 have meta descriptions too long for AI tools to read in full.
10. The lowest score came from thin content
The lowest-scoring homepage had about 165 words, the only critical issue in the set. It also had no canonical tag, no Open Graph or Twitter tags and no links to key pages. A page this thin struggles to be judged a strong answer to anything.
Use this data
Download the data as CSV (site, URL, score, top issue, audit date, and category scores where the study has them).
Suggested citation: All I Need For My Website, INDEXED. “We Audited 5 NYC Dentist Websites for SEO and AI Search Readiness.” Audit run 2026-11-02. https://www.allineedformywebsite.com/cases/nyc-dentist-websites-benchmark
Scores come from a single page per site on one day, so they describe those pages at that moment, not the whole company or its rankings.
How to use this on your own site
1. Check that your structured data actually parses
Paste your homepage address into validator.schema.org. Two of the five practices had a JSON-LD block that fails to parse, and a broken block does nothing. Keep exactly one Organization or LocalBusiness block with one consistent business name.
2. Do the cheap hygiene fixes in one sitting
Write alt text for every image, set width and height on images, and trim your title to 50 to 60 characters and your meta description to under 150. Between them these were the most common failures, and none needs a developer.
3. Check how heavy your page is
View the page source and look at the file size. Four of the five were over 100 KB of HTML. Look for inline scripts, embedded SVGs and bulky page builder output, and ask your developer or theme support what can move into separate files.
4. Close the local trust gaps
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, link it from your site, add a LinkedIn company page link, and show real reviews with a link to where they live. The one site missing all three scored 19/100 on E-E-A-T.
5. Back up "best" or soften it
Four of the five call themselves the best or a top dentist. Link to the review profile that supports it, or replace the superlative with something checkable, such as years in practice or the number of reviews.
What this does and does not show
Five hand-picked homepages, checked on one day, with the names withheld. This is a small snapshot of common problems, not statistics about dentists, and it says nothing about rankings, patient numbers or the quality of care. Scores describe those pages at that moment, and several checks read the raw HTML, so script-rendered pages can look thinner than they are.
Go deeper
Read the full guide: Search Engine Visibility →
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