The Smyleee Rating
A data-driven quality score for every dental clinic
Example score — calculated from 11 base components plus 2 engagement bonuses
Ranking algorithm update
April 26, 2026
We’ve rebalanced the Smyleee Rating to favor signals patients actually feel
Two engaged clinics with maxed-out profiles used to tie for the top spot, even when one had a markedly stronger track record with patients. The refreshed formula puts real-world reputation, depth of patient feedback, recency of that feedback, and practice tenure ahead of “did they fill the form.”
Where to put your attention
- ✓Make sure your practice is delighting patients on the platforms they actually leave reviews on. Strong, current ratings move the score the most.
- ✓Encourage patients to leave a review soon after their visit. Recency is now its own component.
- ✓Write a description that reads like a human wrote it — mention the procedures you actually do, in your own words.
- ✓Get your dentists verified. A solo verified dentist scores as well as a verified team — quality, not headcount.
- ✓Claim and verify your listing. Engagement bonuses are now stacked into the formula.
What carries less weight than before
- −Filling every optional profile field. Basics still matter, but a “complete” profile no longer wins on its own.
- −Adding services or photos beyond the standard threshold. Every plan tier competes on the same content cap.
- −SEO meta fields. Still helpful, but a smaller share of the score.
The algorithm is designed to reward outcomes, not effort. Two clinics that both “fill the form” should not tie at the top — the one with stronger real-world signal should pull ahead.
The process
How It Works
Data Collection
We aggregate data from multiple online sources, clinic profiles, and patient signals to build a comprehensive view of every dental practice.
Algorithm Processing
Our scoring engine evaluates each clinic across 11 weighted components plus engagement bonuses, producing a normalized quality score on a 0-100 scale.
Score & Ranking
Clinics receive their Smyleee Rating and those above the qualification threshold enter the ranking pool for Top 10 lists.
Transparent scoring
The Score Breakdown
Every Smyleee Rating is composed of 11 base components plus 2 engagement bonuses, each contributing a specific number of points to a maximum of 100.
Online Reputation
Stricter scaling — strong real-world ratings move the needle most.
Review Volume
Depth of validation. Hundreds of reviews count more than a handful.
Years in Business
Long-tenured practices score higher. >20y maxes the slot.
Recent Review
Freshness matters. Recent reviews signal an active, current practice.
Description Quality
Well-structured prose that names the actual procedures offered.
Dentist Roster
Quality, not headcount. A solo verified dentist scores the same as a full team.
Editorial Assessment
Smyleee's editorial review of the practice.
Profile Basics
Phone, website, address, hours, languages, top specialties.
Services Listed
Plan-agnostic — every clinic competes on the same 5-service threshold.
Media Quality
Featured image plus a small gallery. Same threshold for every plan.
SEO
Meta title, meta description, schema type.
Claim Bonus
+2 engagement bonus when an owner claims the listing.
Verification Bonus
+5 engagement bonus when ownership is verified (widget on the live website).
What your score means
Score bands
Every Smyleee Rating maps to one of five tiers. The label appears next to the score everywhere on Smyleee — clinic cards, profiles, and Top 10 rankings.
90+
Outstanding
84–89
Excellent
71–83
Very Good
61–70
Good
0–60
Rated
This is not your Google rating
A clinic's Google rating (out of 5 stars) reflects only the reviews left on Google. The Smyleee Rating is a separate 0–100 score that factors Google reputation in alongside review recency, years in practice, profile completeness, and editorial review. Both numbers are shown on a clinic's profile — they are never merged into a single figure.
Our commitment
What Makes It Fair
100% Algorithmic
No manual manipulation of rankings. Every score is computed automatically from verifiable data points, ensuring objectivity and consistency.
Transparent Scoring
Every clinic can see a full breakdown of their score, understand exactly how each component is calculated, and identify areas for improvement.
Unbiased Rankings
Sponsored listings are clearly labeled and never affect a clinic's Smyleee Rating. Paid placements are separate from organic scoring.
Ranking eligibility
Top 10 Qualification
Only clinics that meet our quality threshold are eligible for inclusion in Smyleee’s curated Top 10 lists.
Below Threshold
Listed in directory but not eligible for Top 10 rankings
Above Threshold
Enters the ranking pool for curated Top 10 lists
Per-Page Ranking
Once a clinic qualifies, its position in each Top 10 list is determined by a combination of its Smyleee Rating, relevance to the specific service being ranked, and proximity to the location being featured.
Platform Integrity
This is not a backlink directory
Smyleee is a curated dental marketplace built on data integrity and patient trust — not a website directory for SEO purposes. We actively monitor and enforce the quality of every listing on our platform.
No Ghost Listings
Every listing must represent a real, operational dental practice with verifiable contact information, physical address, and active patient services. Shell profiles created solely for backlinks are identified and permanently removed.
Zero Tolerance for Manipulation
SEO agencies, marketing firms, and link-building services that create or claim listings on behalf of clinics without genuine patient service intent will have their accounts suspended and all associated listings removed without warning.
Continuous Monitoring
Our systems continuously verify listings against real-world data. Clinics that go inactive, show inconsistent information, or fail our periodic quality audits are flagged, downgraded, or removed from the platform entirely.
A message to SEO agencies and marketing firms
Smyleee has been operational since 2012. Our ranking algorithm evaluates clinics across multiple verified data points that cannot be gamed through profile creation alone. Creating a listing without a complete, verifiable practice profile will result in a Smyleee Rating of zero — providing no SEO value, no ranking eligibility, and no backlink authority. We use nofollow attributes on all outbound links until a clinic meets our quality threshold. Your time is better spent elsewhere.
Why this page matters for AI search
Patients are increasingly asking ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, and Perplexity to just find them a dentist — not typing a search and scrolling links. Whether your clinic gets named in that answer depends on whether AI systems can find a specific, verifiable fact to cite. That's exactly what the Smyleee Rating and this methodology page are built to provide.
A single, citable number
AI answer engines favor specific, verifiable data points over vague marketing language. "Smyleee Rating: 92 (Outstanding)" is exactly the kind of concrete, comparable fact a generative engine can quote with confidence — unlike a subjective claim your own website might make about itself.
Structured for machine extraction
Every clinic profile ships with schema.org markup (ratings, reviews, FAQs, business details) built specifically so AI systems — and Google's own AI Overviews — can read and cite your practice's facts directly, not just index a page of text.
Editorial review builds trust signals
Content reviewed by a licensed dentist on our medical advisory board carries the kind of independent verification that answer engines weigh when deciding which sources to trust — the same E-E-A-T signal search engines have rewarded for years.
A transparent methodology to point to
This page itself is part of the signal: a publicly published, specific methodology (this page) gives AI systems something concrete to verify a claim against, rather than an opaque "trust us" score.
Want to see whether your clinic is actually being cited in AI answers today? The AI Citation Dashboard on AI Visibility Pro tracks it directly, with a monthly report on where you show up and where you don't.
How 7 AI search engines discover and cite content
Every answer engine patients now use to find a dentist retrieves and cites the web differently. Listing on Smyleee and keeping your AI Readiness Indicator high is what makes a profile legible to all seven — whether or not each one is publicly measurable yet.
ChatGPT
When a question needs current or local information, ChatGPT browses the live web and cites the specific pages it drew the answer from.
Your profile provides: A verified rating, structured FAQ, and clear service listings to quote directly — plus a robots.txt policy that never blocks its citation crawler.
Perplexity
Built around live web search from the ground up — every answer is a set of numbered citations pulled from its own web index and real-time search, never an unsourced claim.
Your profile provides: schema.org markup and a specific, quotable Smyleee Rating — exactly the concrete fact Perplexity favors over vague marketing copy.
Claude
Claude's web search tool fetches pages live when a question needs current information, reading the page's structured data and visible content before citing the source.
Your profile provides: Clean, crawlable HTML with real content rendered in the page itself (not streamed behind a loading state) and an llms.txt index built for exactly this kind of retrieval.
Microsoft Copilot / Bing AI Search
Grounded in Bing's own search index, Copilot synthesizes an answer from top-ranking pages and shows inline citations back to the source.
Your profile provides: Unblocked Bing indexing and the same schema.org entity data that helps Google understand a clinic profile also helps Bing's index do the same.
Grok / X (Twitter) AI Search
Grok combines real-time X conversation data with live web search, surfacing and citing a business's own website or profile page alongside social signals.
Your profile provides: A public, always-current profile page with structured facts — rating, services, hours — for it to draw on whenever a web search triggers.
Google AI Overview
Generated directly from Google's own search index — an AI-written summary at the top of results, drawing from and linking out to the same pages that rank organically.
Your profile provides: The same technical SEO fundamentals that earn organic ranking: indexable pages, valid structured data, fast and clean rendering.
Google Gemini
With Google Search grounding switched on, Gemini retrieves and cites live pages the same way AI Overview does; without it, Gemini has no way to know about a specific local clinic at all.
Your profile provides: Being indexed and citable in Google Search in the first place — the only way a local clinic ever enters Gemini's grounded answers.
Today, the AI Citation Dashboard actively measures and reports mentions in ChatGPT and Perplexity — the two engines with mature, trackable answer-citation behavior. The other five aren't yet instrumented, but the same structural work — schema markup, FAQ data, editorial trust signals — is what makes a profile citable everywhere AI search is headed next.
Questions about the Smyleee Rating
What is the Smyleee Rating?
The Smyleee Rating is a data-driven, 0–100 quality score computed for every dental clinic listed on Smyleee. It combines 11 weighted components — online reputation, review volume and recency, years in business, profile completeness, editorial assessment, and more — plus 2 engagement bonuses, into a single normalized number out of 100.
Is the Smyleee Rating the same as my Google rating?
No. Your Google rating (out of 5 stars) reflects only the reviews patients leave on Google. The Smyleee Rating is a broader 0–100 score: it factors in your Google reputation alongside review recency, years in practice, profile completeness, and editorial review. Both numbers appear on your Smyleee profile and are never combined into one figure.
What do Smyleee Rating scores mean?
Scores map to five tiers: 90 and above is Outstanding, 84–89 is Excellent, 71–83 is Very Good, 61–70 is Good, and below 61 is Rated. These labels appear next to a clinic's score everywhere on Smyleee, including Top 10 rankings and clinic cards.
Can a clinic pay to improve its Smyleee Rating?
No. The Smyleee Rating is 100% algorithmic and computed automatically from verifiable data points. Sponsored placements are clearly labeled and never affect a clinic's underlying score.
What's the minimum score to appear in Top 10 rankings?
A clinic needs a Smyleee Rating of at least 65 to qualify for Top 10 list rankings. Below that threshold, a clinic stays listed in the directory but isn't eligible for curated Top 10 placement.
How do I improve my Smyleee Rating?
Focus on real-world reputation first — encourage recent reviews and respond to them, since online reputation and recency carry the most weight. Write a description that names the actual procedures you offer, get your dentists verified, and claim and verify your own listing to pick up the engagement bonuses.
For clinics
Want to improve your score?
Claim your listing and complete your profile to maximize your Smyleee Rating. The more complete and accurate your profile, the higher your score.