We asked Perplexity two kinds of question about dentists: "best dentist in [town], UK" for 8 UK towns, and "best private dental implants in [town], UK" for a further 10 UK towns, 18 questions in total, all on 28 September 2026. The 8 "best dentist" questions were also asked a second time the same day; since that repeat asked exactly the same questions, we count only the first run here, not the repeat.
The answers named an average of 5.6 practices each, the highest of the trades on this site, and every answer named at least one.
This page is one of seven written from the same batch of September 2026 questions, covering accountants; architects; solicitors doing conveyancing; physiotherapists; dentists; solicitors in general and family law; and vets. Each page reports only the answers for its own trade, counted separately from the others.
Which sites get cited
helpdental.ai, a dental-specific directory, was cited in 12 of the 18 answers, more than any other directory. bestdentists.uk followed in 11 of 18. alldentists.co.uk and whatclinic.com were each cited in 9 of 18, and mynextdentist.co.uk in 7 of 18. The practice pages of one large dental chain were cited just as often as helpdental.ai, in 12 of 18 answers, and a second chain's practice pages in 9 of 18; we count chain and practice websites separately from the directories above.
Five things to check first
- Set up or update a helpdental.ai listing, since it was cited in 12 of the 18 answers we logged, the most of any directory.
- Check your bestdentists.uk and alldentists.co.uk listings show your current treatments.
- Check your WhatClinic profile and reviews are recent.
- Check your mynextdentist.co.uk listing matches your current address and opening hours.
- Run the search for your own town occasionally. This is a small sample, and a second run can name different practices.
None of the five directories above is the practice's own website. If you only check your own site and your general web search ranking, you are checking a different thing to what we measured here: the list of sources Perplexity showed under its answer to an actual question about a dentist or dental implants in a specific town.
What this means in practice
Four of the five most-cited directories in this sample are dental-specific rather than general local directories: helpdental.ai, bestdentists.uk, alldentists.co.uk and mynextdentist.co.uk. whatclinic.com, a clinic-booking and review site that also appears on our physiotherapists page, was the only general platform among the five. A practice listed only on general sites such as Yell or Google is missing four of the five directories we logged most often for this trade.
Method and limits
- Engine: Perplexity only. We also track Google AI Overviews separately; this page covers Perplexity.
- 18 questions in total: 8 questions for "best dentist" and 10 questions for "best private dental implants", each in a different UK town, answered once, on 28 September 2026. The 8 "best dentist" questions were also asked a second time the same day; we count only the first run, not the repeat.
- A source counts once per answer even if the domain appears more than once in that answer's source list; "cited in X of 18" means X separate answers listed that domain somewhere.
- Two large dental chains have their own pages for individual branches, and these pages were cited often. A branch page is that practice's own website, not a directory, so we count the chains separately from the directories above, the same way we treat any practice's own site. Their citation counts are given above so the directory figures are not read as the whole picture.
- We do not name any dental practice on this page. The figures above come from our own run of these questions and can be checked by repeating them.
- The leading source here can differ from the one in our wider study of where Perplexity looks for local firms, and that study used a different and larger sample of questions.
If you want to see what Perplexity and Google AI Overviews currently say about your own practice, request a free GEO audit.