We audit clinic listings every week. The same seven mistakes appear again and again — each one quietly redirecting patients to a competitor. Check your own profile against this list today.
1. The listing isn't claimed
An unclaimed profile means anyone can suggest edits — and Google auto-applies many of them. We've seen clinics with a competitor's phone number live on their listing for months. Claim ownership first; everything else depends on it.
2. OPD timings are wrong (or missing holiday hours)
"Open now" is one of the most-used filters in patient searches. Wrong timings mean you're invisible when you're open, and patients arrive when you're closed — which then turns into a 1★ review. Update regular hours, lunch closures and every public holiday.
3. A generic category
"Medical clinic" as your primary category when you're a dermatology practice hands "skin doctor near me" to competitors. Google offers hundreds of specific medical categories — use the most precise one, and add secondaries for each department.
4. No services listed
The services section is searchable inventory. If "root canal", "full body checkup" or "physiotherapy" isn't listed with a description, Google has to guess whether you offer it — and it usually guesses conservatively. List every procedure with a one-line description.
5. Ignoring the Q&A section
Anyone can ask — and anyone can answer — questions on your listing. Unmonitored, the top answer about your consultation fee might be a stranger's wrong guess from 2023. Seed the section with your real FAQs and answer new questions within a day.
6. Stock photos or a five-year-old exterior shot
Patients judge cleanliness and modernity from photos before they ever visit. Real, recent, well-lit photos of reception, consultation rooms and the team consistently outperform stock imagery. Add a few new photos each month — freshness is itself a signal.
7. Reviews without responses
A page of unanswered reviews reads as an unattended clinic. Worse, an unanswered complaint becomes the loudest thing on your profile. Every review deserves a response within a day or two — our AI review management does this automatically, daily, in your clinic's voice.
Want the full picture? Our free audit walks through your live profile line by line — book 20 minutes here — or read how the whole stack fits together in the GBP optimization service.
We run Google visibility, bookings, reviews and patient messaging for 500+ doctor profiles across India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Book a free listing audit →
