Independents hold most Google Maps places in England, a little under their share. Against a group, the practice with more reviews usually ranks higher.

When a patient searches for a dentist, who holds the first places on Google Maps: independent practices or the dental groups? We measured it. On 13 September 2026 we searched Google on a phone for "dentist" plus the name of every English city, town and suburb in our national index, and recorded the practices Google Maps showed first. We then checked each one against the Care Quality Commission's register to see who runs it.

Three terms are used throughout. A map place is one of the three practices Google shows on the map at the top of the results. A group is a practice whose registered provider, or the brand CQC records it under, runs 10 or more dental practices in England. That takes in the large groups such as mydentist, Bupa Dental Care, Portman and Dentex, Rodericks, Colosseum and Together Dental, and many smaller regional ones. An independent is everyone else, including owners with two or three sites. NHS community dental services are counted separately and left out of both.

Our September study of 1,532 UK places, How many Google reviews does a dental practice need?, set out the review counts that hold a map place in towns of different sizes. This one asks who holds those places, and what goes with ranking higher when an independent meets a group.

1. Independents hold most of the map places we could identify, a little under their share of practices

Across 700 English places, Google showed 2,051 map places. We could tell who runs 1,869 of them. Independents hold 1,158 (62.5% of the places we could identify) and groups 696 (37.5%). 15 went to NHS community services and 17 to listings that are not dental practices, such as GP surgeries and dental laboratories. 165 could not be identified, so of all 2,051 map places independents hold 57%.

That has to be set against how many practices each side runs. On average, groups run 31% of the registered practices within 2 miles of each place, weighting each place by its own map places. So groups hold a little more of the map than their share of practices, 37.5% against 31%, and independents a little less, 62.5% against 69%. Groups' map places run at 1.21 times their share of practices (95% range 1.15 to 1.27).

Groups hold slightly more of the map than their share of practices, and the gap opens where more practices compete

The tilt is modest, and the unidentified listings could move it. If every one of the 165 were an independent, groups would hold 35% of the map against 31% of practices. If every one were a group, 43%.

2. In smaller markets there is no gap

Where five or fewer practices sit within 2 miles of the centre, groups hold 34.8% of the map places and run 33.9% of the practices. The two are level. The gap opens in busier places: with 11 to 20 practices nearby, groups hold 42% against 30%, and with 21 or more, 34% against 24%.

We tested the obvious alternatives. The tilt is there in towns (38% against 32%) and in the 36 cities (46% against 32%). In the 70 suburbs it is 33% against 28%, which is too few places to be sure of. It points the same way in every English region, though in 4 of the 9 regions the figure on its own is too small to be sure of, and in London it is 26% against 15% across 41 places. It is much the same in the least and most deprived thirds of places, measured by the neighbourhoods within 2 miles (33% against 27%, and 45% against 36%).

The share of nearby practices that groups run shows a sharper pattern. Where groups are scarcest, running under 18% of the practices nearby, they hold 13.8% of the map places against 7.2% of practices, the largest tilt in the study. Where they run more than 39%, they hold the map almost in proportion, 61% against 58%. So the edge is not a matter of groups owning many sites in a town and filling the map. In 45 of 700 places one group holds at least two of the three map places, and in 4 it holds all three.

3. Distance from each place's centre shows the clearest pattern, for both sides

Google's own help pages say it ranks map results on relevance, distance and prominence, and that review count and rating are part of prominence. Distance is the clearest pattern in this data. Each place's centre is located from CQC addresses, so this is distance from the middle of the place, not from any one searcher. Among practices less than half a mile from a place's centre, 43% of group practices and 35% of independents hold one of its map places. Between 1 and 2 miles out, it falls to 5% and 3%.

Group practices could simply sit nearer town centres. So we compared like with like: practices the same distance from the centre, in places with the same number of competitors. A group practice is still 1.23 times as likely as an independent to hold a map place (95% range 1.14 to 1.33). The next two findings look at what goes with that.

4. Group practices hold their places with more reviews, not better ratings

Counting each Google listing once, the 670 group practices holding a map place have a median of 230 Google reviews. The 1,130 independents have 136. The groups' median star rating is lower, 4.7 against 4.8, and 62% of them are rated 4.6 or better against 76% of the independents.

The review gap holds at every level of competition, so it is not just that groups sit in bigger towns.

This data cannot say why group practices have more reviews. A practice that sees more patients collects more reviews, a practice that has been open longer has had longer to collect them, and how consistently a practice asks matters too. None of these is measured here. Either way, the number on the listing is what Google and patients see.

5. Side by side on the map, the one with more reviews usually ranks higher

The sharpest test is the 496 cases where a group practice and an independent both hold a map place in the same search and sit about the same distance from the centre, within half a mile of each other's distance. Here the practice with more reviews is ranked above the other 65% of the time, and the practice with the better star rating 45% of the time.

When an independent meets a group on the map, more reviews go with ranking higher. A better star rating does not.

An independent with more reviews than the group practice beside it was ranked above it 67% of the time. With fewer, 36%. There was no sign that a better star rating helped. An independent with the higher rating was ranked above the group 45% of the time, and one with the lower rating 53%. Holding the review comparison fixed, the higher rating went with ranking above less often, not more: with more reviews than the group, 64% when the independent was rated higher and 78% when it was rated lower. An independent with the better rating but fewer reviews came out on top in only 28% of cases.

These are associations. Google weighs many things it does not publish, and a practice with more reviews is often a larger or longer-established one, which this data does not measure.

6. What the independents that hold the most ground have in common

Holding a map place for the town's name is one test. Patients also search from their own street. Practice Radar's audit reads the Google Maps top three for "dentist" at 25 points a mile apart, a 4 by 4 mile square centred on the practice. We used readings for 607 independent practices in England taken on 17 and 18 October 2026. They were chosen for a postal mailing: practices run as limited companies with up to three sites, with an identifiable principal or a sole director, taken youngest director first, and with a Google listing our software matched automatically. Younger and newer practices are over-represented, so this is not a random sample of independents, and newer practices with fewer reviews could make the link with reviews look stronger than it is.

In our audit sample, almost all (97%) are in the top three at their own front door. Beyond it, most hold very little: the median practice is in the top three at 2 of the 25 points. 29% hold a top-three place across at least a third of the square, 9 points or more. We call that holding wide ground.

How many practices are close by goes with the biggest difference. In our audit sample, 72% of practices with no more than two practices within a mile, counting their own, hold wide ground. With six or more, 12%. Within the same density, review count relative to the practices Google shows beside them goes with more ground. With three to five practices within a mile, 70% of independents with at least twice their neighbours' reviews hold wide ground, against 35% of those with under half as many. With six or more nearby, it is 18% against 3%.

Independents with under half their neighbours' reviews hold the least ground, at every level of competition

We also tested everything else on the listing, holding density and the other factors equal. Each doubling of a practice's reviews went with 1.38 times the odds of a top-three place at a given point (95% range 1.28 to 1.53). A practice whose own website was on page one of Google for "dentist" plus its town had 2.0 times the odds (1.6 to 2.6), though the same strength may drive both. Star rating made no measurable difference (1.00 per tenth of a star). There was no sign that a business description or a booking link helped. Practices with ten or more photos on their listing did slightly worse (0.60 times the odds, 0.45 to 0.78). That most likely reflects something we did not measure, not that photos hurt.

What to do about it

Know who sits beside you. Search "dentist" on your phone outside your own front door and again for your town's name. Note the three practices Google shows, whether each is a group or an independent, and how many reviews each has. That is your number to beat, not a national average.

Aim to out-review the practice beside you, not to out-rate it. 71% of practices holding a map place are rated 4.6 stars or better, and a better rating did not go with an independent ranking above the group next to it. More reviews went with ranking above it two times in three. Part of that is practice size and age, which no practice can change quickly, but steady asking is in every practice's hands. Ask every patient, every week, as part of the visit. Google's rules forbid paying or offering anything for a review, so don't.

Make your website earn a place for your town's name. Independents whose own site ranked on page one for "dentist" plus their town held more ground on the map. A clear page that says who you are, where you are and what you treat is the start.

Be realistic about crowded centres. In our audit sample, with six or more practices within a mile, only 12% of independents held the map across a third of the area around them. There, the review gap to the practices beside you is the clearest thing that went with holding more of your own street.

Don't assume a group has the map sewn up. In smaller towns groups hold the map in proportion to the practices they run, and across England independents hold most of the places we could identify. Where a group practice outranks an independent beside it, it usually has more reviews, and that number can be matched over time.

How we did this

The searches. One live Google search on a mobile phone for "dentist [place]" in every place in the Practice Radar national index, run through DataForSEO on 13 September 2026. Of the 1,145 English places, 943 had a map result. The three listings at the top of the map were recorded with their name, street, website, star rating and review count as Google reported them at that moment. Five places Google could not locate were searched without a location and are left out.

Locating each place. The index takes each place's point from the first Ordnance Survey place of that name, which for some places is a namesake elsewhere in England. So each place was located from CQC itself: the median registered dental address in the post town of that name when those addresses form one town, or in the London borough. Where neither works, the index's point is used only if the map listings confirm it. A place is located from its own map listings only when two or more of them agree, and because those are the very listings being scored, those 138 places are left out of the lead figures and shown only as a check. Of the 943 places with a map, 98 could not be located safely, 138 were located only from their listings, and 7 had no identifiable practice on the map or none nearby, leaving 700. Region and place type are taken from the corrected location, not from the index.

How the location affects the result. Places located from post-town addresses give a ratio of 1.23 (practice-level 1.26), places on the index's confirmed point 1.12 (1.08), and the 138 places located from their own listings 0.94 (0.94). With every safely located place included, 838 in all, groups hold 36% of map places against 31% of practices, a ratio of 1.17, and the practice-level figure is 1.18. The direction holds except in the listings-located places, where the method itself pulls each centre towards the practices on the map.

Who runs each practice. The CQC care directory of 14 October 2026 lists every registered dental location in England, its provider and its provider ID, and CQC's Syndication API adds each location's coordinates, website and, for groups that trade under several companies, a common brand. A group is a provider or a brand with 10 or more registered dental locations in England. Counting by brand matters, because the largest groups register their practices under several companies. A practice bought by a group but still trading under its own name counts as a group where CQC registers it to the group or records the group's brand. Some group-owned companies registered without a CQC brand count as independent, which understates groups slightly.

Matching listings to the register. A listing was matched to a CQC location within 12 miles on its name, its street and house number, and its website, using the name matching in Practice Radar's own software. A match needs a shared distinctive word in the name plus the street or website, or a name that is the only close match within 5 miles, or the same street and number as only one location within 3 miles. A shared place name such as the town alone never counts. 88% of the 2,034 practice listings were matched. Listings without a safe match were counted as a group only where their website or name belongs to a group, and 92% were identified in all. Using only the two strictest kinds of match, groups hold 41% of map places against 32% of practices.

Nearby practices. Registered CQC dental locations within 2 miles of each place's centre, community services left out. With 1 mile the comparison gives 38% against 31%, and with 3 miles 38% against 31%.

Where the line for a group is drawn. With 5 or more locations as the test, groups hold 40% of map places against 33% of practices. With 20 or more, 33% against 27%. The practice-level comparison in finding 3 gives 1.23 and 1.22 on those two tests. The conclusions do not depend on where the line is drawn.

Deprivation. Each place's deprivation is the population-weighted IMD 2025 score of the neighbourhoods (2021 LSOAs) whose ONS population-weighted centre lies within 2 miles of the place's centre. Places were split into thirds on it.

The audit readings. Practice Radar's free audit, run on 17 and 18 October 2026 for the mailing sample described in finding 6, reads the Google Maps top three for "dentist" at 25 points a mile apart around each practice, with the Google listing of the practice and of the practices shown at its address. Only first readings on the mile grid were used, one per practice. The model is a logistic regression on the 25 points, with intervals from resampling practices.

Wales and Scotland. CQC registers practices in England only, so the study is England only. Counting only practices whose website or name shows a group brand, a method that finds far fewer groups than the full one, 16% of map places in Wales show a group brand, against 24% in England on the same method. The Scottish groups are mostly regional names this method cannot recognise, so Scotland is not reported.

What this is not. It is one search per place, on one day, on a phone. Map results move with the searcher's exact position, so a single place is a reading, not a constant, and every figure here is pooled across places. Google does not publish how it ranks, and every link reported here is an association, not proof of cause. Practice size and age are not measured, and larger and older practices tend to have more reviews. No individual practice or group is assessed.

Questions we get asked about this data

Do dental groups dominate Google Maps in England?

No. Independents hold 62.5% of the first three map places we could identify for a dentist search across 700 English places, slightly below their 69% average share of the practices near the same places. Groups hold 37.5%, slightly more than their 31% share, and the gap shows only in places with six or more practices nearby.

Does a better star rating help a practice rank above a group practice?

We found no sign that it does. When an independent and a group practice sat side by side on the map, the independent was ranked higher 45% of the time when it had the better rating and 53% when it had the worse one. Review count went with the difference: 67% when the independent had more reviews, 36% when it had fewer.

How many reviews do group practices on the map have?

A median of 230, against 136 for independents holding a map place. It rises with competition, from 169 where five or fewer practices are within 2 miles to 375 where 21 or more are. The number that matters for any one practice is the count of the practices beside it on the map.

For editors

The pooled data is free to reuse with attribution to Practice Radar, under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Sources: live Google searches of 13 September 2026, the CQC care directory of 14 October 2026 and CQC's Syndication API, Practice Radar audit readings of 17 and 18 October 2026, the English Indices of Deprivation 2025, ONS neighbourhood centroids and Ordnance Survey's OS Open Names. The file, independent-vs-group-dental-practices-google-maps.csv, has the comparison for England and for each group of places. No practice or group is named in it.

Jack Henty, who compiled this analysis, co-owns Bollington Dental Practice in Cheshire and founded Practice Radar, which measures local dental markets for practices. He is available for interview.

Contact: hello@practiceradar.co.uk