WRITER Carl Jones

Google, Apple, and Microsoft search engines are transitioning into ‘recommendation engines’, placing practitioners at increasing risk of inadvertently breaching Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) guidelines, the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, and the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).

Local business directory listings, which are defined by the authorities as advertising, are increasingly being created by these search – or recommendation – engines, which draw information from websites and consumer reviews.

Practitioners must maintain a vigilant watch over their local business directory listings or engage a ‘manager’ to overcome the risk of incorrect or advertorial information being published.

THE BIG THREE LOCAL DIRECTORY PLATFORMS

The world of search engines is increasingly complex. Google has the largest audience via its search engine and Maps app. Microsoft Bing has a strong business to business, government, and healthcare audience. Apple has a high-income audience predominantly using iPhone services such as Apple Maps and Siri. The services all look similar and users often assume that they are using Google when they are actually seeing information from Microsoft or Apple. Practitioners must manage all three – not just Google – which collectively account for 99%+ of the Australian search engine market.

CHALLENGES WITH DATA

Listings are initially created from information found by the platforms on websites and enhanced by user suggestions. This means that the platforms may find outdated information from a website, and any member of the public may ‘suggest an edit’ to the platforms, further adding to the risk of misleading and incorrect information in the listing. For example, the platforms may add categories and services to your listing that do not accurately represent what you do or what your qualifications are. Even after you claim a listing and log in to check the  contents, you may see a notification with the heading ‘Updates’. These updates have already been published live to the public; the platform is not asking for your approval to publish the change. You must revert the changes if they are incorrect or misleading. This requires practitioners to check their listings regularly.

CHALLENGES WITH REVIEWS

Anyone with a Google account can write and publish a review on your Google listing. Listing owners cannot disable or remove reviews. Google will remove reviews that break their own content guidelines, however those guidelines are very narrow and don’t stop someone who has never even visited your practice from leaving a review.

ONGOING COMPLIANCE

The responsibility falls on practitioners to comply with section 30 of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law at all times. Practitioners must regularly check their local business listings and correct them as necessary. If it is impractical to frequently monitor your listings, consider outsourcing the management of your listing. This is possible by giving a manager access to your listings via the settings tab of each listing. You continue to own the listings, and the manager can be replaced or removed by you at any time.

AI AND THE EVOLUTION OF HEALTHCARE LISTINGS

All three major platforms have begun to evolve from being simple search engines to becoming ‘recommendation engines’. Powered by AI, these platforms aim to deliver a simple, perfectly correct answer to a user in response to a query.

• Google upgraded the search engine experience to what it calls AI Overviews (AIOs) in November 2024.

• Apple released its Apple Intelligence features to Australian users in an iOS update in February 2025.

• Microsoft has aggressively been adding Copilot features to all its products in the past few months.

The platforms regard the information contained in their own business listings as significantly superior to information published on websites. This includes the ‘user-generated content’ parts of the listings. Notably, the words that reviewers have used, which are often ill-thought-out, will play a significant role in shaping the perception of your practice.

CONCLUSION

Ahrpa requires healthcare providers to CHECK > CORRECT > COMPLY when advertising a regulated health service. As search engines transition into recommendation engines, the need for keeping listing information accurate becomes paramount. This proactive approach not only helps to maintain professional standards, but also enhances the patient experience.

Carl Jones is a product specialist at localmanager.com.au.