North Media analyzed Google Maps results for the search term “dentist” from 169 locations across Edmonton and the surrounding area.

We captured the top 20 results at every location.

That gave us:

3,380 Google Maps results
524 unique Google Business Profiles
382 businesses with Edmonton addresses
94 different businesses that ranked #1 somewhere
A median #1 result only 1.5 km from the person searching

The takeaway?

Your dental practice does not have one Google ranking.

It has a local visibility footprint.

You might rank #2 when you search from inside your clinic.

A patient three or four kilometres away may see something completely different.

And that means the question dentists should be asking isn't:

“Where do we rank on Google?”

It's:

“How much of our actual patient market can see us?”

Quick heads-up: This is a detailed study and will take about 5–10 minutes to read. But if you own or manage a dental practice in Edmonton, it’ll be worth your time.

The Edmonton Dental Search Study at a Glance

Metric	Result
Search term analyzed	dentist
Search locations	169
GeoGrid	13 × 13
Results captured at each location	20
Total Google Maps observations	3,380
Unique Google Business Profiles	524
Edmonton-address businesses	382
Different businesses ranking #1 somewhere	94
Approximate spacing between grid points	2 miles
Study date	August 21, 2026

Why should a dentist care?

Because most ranking reports answer the wrong question.

They tell you:

Position #3

But they often don't tell you:

Position #3 from where?

Google says local search results are primarily influenced by relevance, distance and prominence.

So when the person searching moves, the results can move too.

Here's What This Looks Like in the Real World

Imagine your practice is in southwest Edmonton.

You search:

dentist

from inside your clinic.

You rank:

#2

Excellent.

Now a potential patient searches from home several kilometres away.

You might be:

#8

Someone slightly farther away searches.

You might be:

#16

And in another neighbourhood, you may not appear in the top 20 results at all.

All of those rankings can be accurate.

At the same time.

That's why checking your ranking from one computer or one phone tells you only a small part of the story.

The Biggest Finding: 94 Different Businesses Ranked #1

Across the full 169-location study:

94 different businesses held the #1 Google Maps position at least once.

That's a remarkable amount of variation for one keyword in one metropolitan market.

Because some search points on the edge of the grid extended toward surrounding municipalities, we also ran a more conservative analysis.

We isolated 63 search locations where every one of the top 20 results had an Edmonton address.

Even there:

56 different Edmonton businesses ranked #1 somewhere.

So there is no single, universal:

“#1 dentist in Edmonton”

Google's local results change based partly on where the person searching is located.

For dentists, Edmonton isn't really one Google Maps market.

It's a collection of overlapping micro-markets.

Distance Matters — A Lot

One of the strongest patterns in the study was the relationship between ranking position and distance.

For Edmonton-address businesses, we calculated the straight-line distance between each dental business and the location where the search occurred.

Here is what we found:

Google Maps Position	Median Distance From Searcher
#1	1.5 km
#2–#3	2.5 km
#4–#10	3.9 km
#11–#20	5.2 km

The median #1 result was only 1.5 kilometres away from the searcher.

Businesses appearing between positions #11 and #20 were a median of about 5.2 kilometres away.

That doesn't mean 5.2 km is some kind of Google limit.

It isn't.

Businesses in the dataset appeared from farther away.

What the data does show is:

Stronger-ranking businesses were generally closer to the person searching.

That aligns with Google's own explanation of local search, where distance is one of the primary ranking factors.

Think of Distance Like Gravity

Every dental practice has to deal with proximity.

You can't SEO your clinic into physically moving closer to the person searching.

If someone is standing 500 metres from your practice, location is working heavily in your favour.

As that person moves farther away, staying highly visible generally becomes harder.

But distance is not the only factor.

Google identifies three primary local ranking considerations:

Relevance

How well your business matches what the person is looking for.

Distance

How far the business is from the searcher.

Prominence

How well known or established Google believes the business to be.

This is why some practices can continue appearing farther away than others.

They can't remove distance.

But they may have enough relevance and prominence to stay competitive despite it.

Most Edmonton Dental Businesses Had a Small Visibility Footprint

This may be the most useful finding for practice owners.

Of the 382 Edmonton-address businesses that appeared somewhere in our study, the median business appeared at only:

3 of 169 search locations.

Approximately:

34% appeared at only one location
56% appeared at three locations or fewer
18% appeared at 10 or more locations
Just over 6% appeared at 20 or more locations

In other words:

Appearing on Google is not the same as having broad Google visibility.

A dental practice can rank extremely well close to the office but have a surprisingly small geographic footprint.

Think of Google Maps Visibility Like Wi-Fi

Standing beside your Wi-Fi router, your signal probably looks excellent.

Walk upstairs.

The signal weakens.

Go into the backyard.

It weakens again.

You wouldn't judge the quality of your entire Wi-Fi network while standing beside the router.

You would look at coverage.

Local search works in a similar way.

A dentist should not only ask:

“Do we rank?”

The more useful question is:

“Where do we rank strongly?”

The geographic area where your practice maintains useful visibility is what we call your:

Local Visibility Footprint

Some Edmonton Dental Practices Travel Much Farther Than Others

A smaller group of dental businesses appeared across a much broader portion of the grid.

Examples of Edmonton-address businesses with substantial top-20 visibility included:

Practice	Locations Where It Appeared in the Top 20
Orchards Dental	38
Albany Dental Edmonton	29
Reliance Dental Family Dentistry	28
Meraki Dental	28
Newbury Dental	27
Harvest Pointe Dental	27
Jagare Ridge Dental South Edmonton	27
Edmonton West Dental Clinic	26
Keswick Dental	25
Landmark Dental South Edmonton	25

This does not mean these are the “best dentists in Edmonton.”

It also does not mean these practices ranked #1 everywhere.

This study measured:

one keyword

across:

one geographic snapshot

on:

one date.

What we can say is:

These businesses maintained top-20 visibility for “dentist” across a relatively large number of search locations in this dataset.

That is a measure of geographic reach.

But reach isn't everything.

Reach and Dominance Are Not the Same Thing

Consider two dental practices.

Practice A

Appears across 35 locations.

But usually ranks between #7 and #14.

Practice B

Appears across only 15 locations.

But frequently ranks #1, #2 or #3.

Which has better local SEO?

They're strong in different ways.

Practice A has:

Geographic Reach

Practice B has:

Local Dominance

The strongest local search presence may combine both:

broad coverage + strong rankings

This is also why one “average ranking” can be misleading.

Two practices could both have an average position of 7.

But one might appear across 40 locations while the other appears across only eight.

That is not the same level of Google Maps visibility.

A 4.9-Star Rating Is Great. It Is Also Very Common.

Google reviews matter.

Patients use reviews when choosing a dentist, and Google itself says review count and positive ratings can contribute to local ranking.

But there is an important nuance in this study.

Our export included Google star ratings.

It did not include total review counts.

So we can analyze whether star ratings differed across ranking groups.

We cannot responsibly say whether:

800 reviews beats 150 reviews

based on this dataset alone.

Among Edmonton-address businesses:

Median Google rating: 4.8
Approximately 70% had ratings of 4.8 or above
Roughly half had ratings of 4.9 or above

Average ratings by ranking position were:

Position	Average Google Rating
#1	4.85
#2–#3	4.83
#4–#10	4.81
#11–#20	4.82

There's very little separation.

That does not mean reviews don't matter.

What it suggests is more specific:

Star rating alone did not explain the major differences in visibility we saw across Edmonton.

That's also understandable.

When nearly everyone has:

4.8
4.9
4.9
5.0
4.8
4.9

simply having a 4.9 isn't particularly unusual anymore.

The more useful questions may be:

How many reviews do you have?
How recently are patients reviewing you?
How quickly are competitors adding reviews?

What do patients actually say?

How does your profile compare with nearby practices?

Those are variables we would like to include in future versions of this research.

Your Google Competitor Changes Depending on Where the Patient Is

Ask most dentists who their competitors are and they'll name two or three nearby clinics.

That makes sense operationally.

Google Maps is more complicated.

The businesses competing with you change as the patient moves.

A clinic that dominates around Summerside might be much weaker around Windermere.

A different practice may become prominent around Ellerslie.

Move the search again and another group of practices enters the picture.

This means your “Google competitors” aren't necessarily one fixed list.

They depend partly on where your patients are searching from.

Your Real Target Isn't All of Edmonton

This is important.

Suppose your practice is in southwest Edmonton and most of your realistic patient base comes from:

Windermere
Ambleside
Keswick
Glenridding
Chappelle

Do you really need to rank #1 in northeast Edmonton?

Probably not.

Would it be nice?

Sure.

But local SEO should be connected to business value.

A much better objective might be:

Become one of the most consistently visible dental practices across the neighbourhoods patients are realistically willing to travel from.

That changes the strategy completely.

Instead of chasing “Edmonton rankings,” you start measuring your actual patient catchment area.

Ranking #1 Isn't the Final Goal Anyway

Google Maps visibility matters.

But visibility is only the first step.

The real patient journey looks more like:

Patient searches Google

↓

Patient sees your practice

↓

Patient looks at your reviews

↓

Patient visits your website or calls

↓

Patient contacts the practice

↓

Front desk responds

↓

Appointment is booked

↓

Patient shows up

A practice can rank very well and still struggle to generate new patients.

For example:

calls aren't answered quickly
the website doesn't build enough trust
online booking is confusing
competitors have stronger reviews
emergency patients can't get an appointment
the website doesn't clearly explain services
leads aren't being followed up

That's why rankings should be treated as a diagnostic metric, not the ultimate marketing result.

The business question is:

Are more of the right patients finding us, contacting us and booking?

5 Metrics Edmonton Dentists Should Track Instead of One Ranking

1. Top-Three Coverage

Across the neighbourhoods that matter to you, how often do you appear in positions #1–#3?

This tells you where your practice has strong local visibility.

2. Top-10 Coverage

Across how much of your target market do you appear in the first 10 Google Maps results?

This shows your broader footprint.

3. Geographic Reach

How far does meaningful visibility extend from your office?

This is your local visibility footprint.

4. Treatment-Specific Visibility

Don't only monitor:

dentist

Patients also search for:

emergency dentist
Invisalign
dental implants
family dentist
children's dentist
dentist accepting new patients

A clinic can be average for “dentist” but extremely strong for a treatment that matters much more commercially.

5. Actual Patient Acquisition

Connect local visibility to:

calls
forms
booked appointments
new patients
treatment starts

That is ultimately where SEO becomes a business investment rather than a ranking exercise.

Should Edmonton Dentists Try to Rank Across the Entire City?

Probably not.

At some point, geographic expansion produces diminishing returns.

A dental practice has a physical location.

Patients also have a limit on how far they're willing to travel for routine dental care.

If your clinic already has excellent visibility throughout the neighbourhoods most likely to produce patients, spending heavily to extend another 10 or 15 kilometres may not be the smartest next move.

Eventually the strategic question becomes:

Should we push this location farther?

or:

Is the market telling us there may be an opportunity for another location?

Those are very different questions.

And local search data can help inform both.

What This Study Actually Tells Us

After analyzing 3,380 Google Maps results, these are the conclusions we feel comfortable making.

1. Edmonton Dental Search Is Extremely Fragmented

94 businesses ranked #1 somewhere across the full study.

Even in our Edmonton-only sensitivity analysis, 56 Edmonton businesses ranked #1 somewhere.

There is no universal citywide #1.

2. Stronger Rankings Were Generally Closer to the Searcher

The median #1 result was approximately 1.5 km away.

Businesses ranking #11–#20 were a median of approximately 5.2 km away.

3. Most Edmonton Businesses Had Small Geographic Footprints

The median Edmonton-address business appeared at only three search locations.

More than half appeared at three locations or fewer.

4. Reach and Ranking Strength Are Different

A practice can be highly visible across a large area without ranking near the top everywhere.

Another can dominate its immediate neighbourhood but disappear quickly as the patient moves.

5. Excellent Star Ratings Are Common

The median Google rating was 4.8, and ratings were very similar across ranking groups.

Star rating alone did not explain the differences in geographic reach observed in the dataset.

6. One Ranking Screenshot Is Not Enough

You may rank #2 from your office and considerably lower several kilometres away.

Local search needs to be measured geographically.

What This Study Does NOT Prove

We want to be careful not to turn correlation into causation.

This research does not prove that:

distance alone determines Google rankings
a certain number of reviews guarantees better visibility
5.0-star practices rank better than 4.8-star practices
any particular website change causes better Maps rankings
the practices with the widest reach have the best SEO
the practices appearing most often are the best dental practices
rankings stay constant every day
these findings apply equally to every dental keyword

Google uses multiple factors in local search.

This study looked at one keyword during one geographic snapshot.

It should therefore be interpreted as:

a detailed observation of Edmonton dental-search visibility on the study date

rather than an attempt to reverse-engineer Google's algorithm.

Study Methodology

North Media collected this dataset on August 21, 2026.

Search term

dentist

Geographic grid

13 × 13

Search locations

169

Approximate spacing

2 miles

Results collected per location

Top 20 Google Maps results

Total observations

3,380

Unique Google Business Profiles

524

Edmonton-address businesses

382

The dataset included:

search-point latitude and longitude
business latitude and longitude
Google Maps ranking position
Google star rating
business address
Google Place ID

Businesses were deduplicated using Google Place ID.

Because portions of the geographic grid extended toward municipalities surrounding Edmonton, we also ran a sensitivity check using only search points where all 20 returned businesses had Edmonton addresses.

There were 63 such search locations.

Across those locations:

56 different Edmonton businesses ranked #1 at least once.

Distance figures refer to straight-line distance between the search location and business coordinates.

This study measures geographic Google Maps visibility.

It does not measure:

personalized search behaviour
every dental keyword
organic website rankings
actual patient volume
practice quality
revenue

About This Research

This study was conducted by North Media, a Canadian dental marketing agency based in Edmonton, Alberta.

Our goal was to better understand how geographic location affects dental visibility in Google Maps and to give dental practice owners a more useful way to think about local rankings.

Future versions of the study may include additional factors such as:

Google review count
review velocity
website characteristics
treatment-specific searches
additional keywords
additional Canadian cities

Where we report relationships between variables, we will continue to distinguish association from causation.

So, Where Does Your Dental Practice Rank?

After looking at 3,380 Google Maps results, we think that's the wrong question.

The better question is:

How large is the area where Google consistently considers your practice a strong option?

That's your:

Local Visibility Footprint

Some Edmonton dental practices appear across only a small area.

Others maintain visibility much farther away.

Some have broad reach but weaker positions.

Others dominate the area immediately around their practice but quickly disappear.

Understanding which situation applies to your clinic gives you a much clearer picture of your local search opportunity.

Because the goal isn't to rank #1 while you're sitting inside your own dental office.

It's to be visible:

where your next patient is actually searching.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many businesses ranked #1 for “dentist” in Edmonton?

Across the full 169-location study, 94 different businesses occupied the #1 position at least once.

We also analyzed 63 Edmonton-focused search locations where all 20 returned businesses had Edmonton addresses.

Across those locations, 56 different Edmonton businesses ranked #1 somewhere.

How close was the #1 dentist to the person searching?

The median business ranking #1 was approximately 1.5 km from the searcher.

Median distance increased as positions declined:

#1: 1.5 km
#2–#3: 2.5 km
#4–#10: 3.9 km
#11–#20: 5.2 km

Does the closest dental practice always rank first?

No.

Distance is important, but Google also identifies relevance and prominence as major local ranking factors.

A farther practice can therefore outrank a closer business.

Do Google reviews affect dental rankings?

Google says review count and positive ratings can contribute to local ranking.

Our study included star ratings but not total review counts.

We therefore did not attempt to determine whether businesses with more reviews ranked better.

Which Edmonton dental practice had the broadest visibility?

Among Edmonton-address businesses in this dataset, Orchards Dental appeared in the top 20 at 38 of the 169 search locations.

That does not mean the practice ranked #1 everywhere or that it is the “best dentist.”

It simply had the broadest top-20 footprint among the examples analyzed.

What is a local visibility footprint?

A local visibility footprint is the geographic area across which a practice remains visible in Google's local search results.

Instead of asking only:

“What position do we rank?”

it asks:

“Where can potential patients actually find us?”

Should dentists try to rank everywhere in Edmonton?

Not necessarily.

The most commercially valuable objective is usually strong visibility throughout the neighbourhoods where patients are realistically likely to travel from.

What should dental practices measure besides rankings?

At minimum:

top-three coverage
top-10 coverage
geographic reach
treatment-specific visibility
review growth
phone calls
website inquiries
booked appointments
new patients

Sources

North Media Edmonton Dental Local Search Dataset
Collected August 21, 2026. The study used a 13 × 13 geographic grid containing 169 search locations and 3,380 Google Maps observations for the term “dentist.”

Google Business Profile Help — How to improve your local ranking on Google
Google identifies relevance, distance and prominence as major factors affecting local search and states that review count and positive ratings can contribute to local ranking.

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The Complete Dental Practice Growth Checklist (2026 Edition)

How Much Should a Dental Practice Spend on Marketing?

Want results like the practices we write about?

Your dental practice does not have one Google ranking.

The Edmonton Dental Search Study at a Glance

Why should a dentist care?

Here's What This Looks Like in the Real World

#2

#8

#16

The Biggest Finding: 94 Different Businesses Ranked #1

“#1 dentist in Edmonton”

Distance Matters — A Lot

Think of Distance Like Gravity

Relevance

Distance

Prominence

Most Edmonton Dental Businesses Had a Small Visibility Footprint

3 of 169 search locations.

Appearing on Google is not the same as having broad Google visibility.

Think of Google Maps Visibility Like Wi-Fi

Local Visibility Footprint

Some Edmonton Dental Practices Travel Much Farther Than Others

Reach and Dominance Are Not the Same Thing

Practice A

Practice B

Geographic Reach

Local Dominance

A 4.9-Star Rating Is Great. It Is Also Very Common.

You built a great practice. Let's make sure patients can find it.

Your Google Competitor Changes Depending on Where the Patient Is

Your Real Target Isn't All of Edmonton

Ranking #1 Isn't the Final Goal Anyway

5 Metrics Edmonton Dentists Should Track Instead of One Ranking

1. Top-Three Coverage

2. Top-10 Coverage

3. Geographic Reach

4. Treatment-Specific Visibility

5. Actual Patient Acquisition

Should Edmonton Dentists Try to Rank Across the Entire City?

What This Study Actually Tells Us

1. Edmonton Dental Search Is Extremely Fragmented

2. Stronger Rankings Were Generally Closer to the Searcher

3. Most Edmonton Businesses Had Small Geographic Footprints

4. Reach and Ranking Strength Are Different

5. Excellent Star Ratings Are Common

6. One Ranking Screenshot Is Not Enough

What This Study Does NOT Prove

Study Methodology

Search term

Geographic grid

Search locations

Approximate spacing

Results collected per location

Total observations

Unique Google Business Profiles

Edmonton-address businesses

About This Research

So, Where Does Your Dental Practice Rank?

Local Visibility Footprint

Frequently Asked Questions

How many businesses ranked #1 for “dentist” in Edmonton?

How close was the #1 dentist to the person searching?

Does the closest dental practice always rank first?

Do Google reviews affect dental rankings?

Which Edmonton dental practice had the broadest visibility?

What is a local visibility footprint?

Should dentists try to rank everywhere in Edmonton?

What should dental practices measure besides rankings?

Sources

How to Get New Patients to Your Dental Practice in 2026

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