If you search “orthodontist near me” on your phone, the first thing you usually see isn’t a website. It’s a small map with three practices listed under it. That’s the map pack.
It’s also the part of Google practice owners ask me about the most, and the part most of us read wrong. Not because it’s complicated. Because the one you see on your own phone is almost never the one your patients see.
What the map pack is
The map pack is the block of local results Google shows when it thinks you want a business nearby. Three listings, a map above them, and a link underneath to see more.
Anatomy of the map pack
What you see when you search “orthodontist near me”
An ad. Paid placement, not a ranking.
The map. Pins match the listings below.
The map pack itself: three practices, pulled from their Google Business Profiles.
Opens the longer list. Fewer people ever get this far.
A simplified drawing, not a screenshot. Practice names, ratings and layout are illustrative; the exact design changes between phones and over time.
A few things worth knowing about what’s on it. The listings come from Google Business Profiles, not from your website. Your stars, review count, hours, and category are all pulled from the profile.
If a listing says Sponsored, it’s an ad. It has nothing to do with ranking, and it doesn’t tell you anything about who Google thinks is the best match.
And the link to see more places opens a longer list. The order below third place still matters, but far fewer people ever get there.
How Google picks the three
Google says local results are based mainly on three things: relevance, distance, and prominence. On paying for a better spot, they’re pretty direct: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.” (Google Business Profile Help)
- Relevance is how well your listing matches what was searched. Your primary category matters here more than most people think.
- Distance is how far you are from the person searching. You can’t change it.
- Prominence is how well known you are. Reviews, links to your website, and how often you’re mentioned elsewhere all feed into it.
The one people underestimate is distance. It’s the reason the map pack changes depending on where the phone is.
Why your map pack isn’t your patients’ map pack
When you check your own ranking, you’re usually in your office or at home a few minutes away. That’s the best spot on the map for you. Google sees a phone next to your building and, reasonably, puts you near the top.
A parent a few miles away sees a different list. Sometimes a completely different one.
So the question isn’t really where you rank. It’s where you rank, from where.
How to read a map grid
A map grid answers that by running the same search from many points around your office, as if 25 people searched from 25 different spots. Each circle is one search. The number is your position in the map results from that spot.
This is a real one from our own tool, for our North Frisco office, searching “orthodontist near me.”
From the WGO SEO Tool
▲
AVERAGE RANK
2.7
across 25 points
IN THE TOP 3
20/25
80% of the area
RANKED AT ALL
25/25
0 points invisible
AREA COVERED
4.0 mi
across, 2.8 mi to corners
HOLDING #1 ACROSS THIS AREA
points out of 25 where they hold the top spot
Elate Orthodontics, North Frisco. “Orthodontist near me” searched from 25 points one mile apart, four miles across, on 11 September 2026. Rebuilt from the report so it reads on a phone; numbers are exactly as the report shows them.
Green means you’re in the map pack from that spot. Amber means you’re on the list, but below the three people see first. Orange and beyond, and for that searcher you’re mostly not there.
The four boxes on the right are the summary. Average rank across all 25 points, how many points put you in the top three, how many list you at all, and how much ground the grid covers.
What this one actually says
On paper this is a good map. Average rank 2.7, top three in 20 of 25 points, first in 9 of them.
Look at the bottom row, though. 6, 6, 4, 3, 8. And the west edge is a 6 too. A parent in the southwest corner scrolls past five other practices before they get to us. The average hides that, because nobody searching ever sees an average.
It’s also worth being honest about the setup. “Near me” on a tight grid centered on the office is close to the best case. If a map looks weak even like this, that’s a real problem. If it looks strong like this, it’s worth widening it before you relax.
Then the part I look at first: who holds the top spot where we don’t. Four practices split 13 of the 16 points where we’re not first. That list tells you who you’re actually competing with in each direction, and it’s often not who you’d guess.
Three questions to ask when you read one
- Where am I first? That’s your home turf.
- Where do I fall out of the top three? That’s where people searching stop seeing you without scrolling.
- Who’s first where I’m not? That’s who you’re actually competing with.
What you do about it depends on the answers. Distance you can’t change. Relevance and prominence you can: the category on your listing, your reviews, and whether your website actually talks about the areas you want to show up in.
Why we built the WGO SEO Tool
I believe in data driven marketing. To me that means two things. The number has to be measured from where your patients are, not from your office. And every number has to come with what to do about it.
Most SEO reporting doesn’t do either. It shows you a ranking from one spot and a chart that goes up, and it’s built to reassure you rather than inform you. So we built the tool we wanted for our own offices, and then opened it up.
Data you can act on
A ranking report tells you a number. This tells you where, why, and what to do.
Where it checks from
What a number means
Competitors
Over time
Cost
Pricing as of September 2026. See the pricing page in the tool for current rates.
The map grid is one part of it. The full report covers five areas, and every finding in it ends with a plain instruction: what to open and what to change. The report also isn’t allowed to print a number it didn’t measure. If it’s in the report, it came from your data.
Five parts of one report
Local SEO. The map grid, your Google Business Profiles, and reviews.
Search performance. Visits, keyword positions in normal search results, and whether AI search mentions you.
Competition. Who is beating you, and the websites linking to them compared with you.
Site health. Technical problems, duplicate pages, and pages that are slowly losing ground.
Portfolio. Every office or practice side by side.
Who it’s for
Orthodontists and dentists. If you pay a marketing company, this is how you find out whether anything is moving. You see your map the way patients around you see it, you see who is beating you and where, and each run is compared with the last one. No contract, and your first map is free.
SEO agencies and consultants. If you manage dental or orthodontic clients, you get an affordable report with the context behind every number, a share link you can send straight to the client, and pricing per practice instead of a platform fee. Pay as you go, or a plan if you run it every month.
Either way, it was built by a practicing orthodontist, on our own offices first. The North Frisco grid above is ours.
Run one for your own practice
You can run a free map for your practice at app.whitegloveorthodontist.com. It uses your specialty and your city across eight miles, so you see what people around you see, not what you see from your front desk.
If you’re curious why we set the free map up that way, I wrote about it in the post about our ranking.
Dr. Kevin Baharvand, DMD, is an orthodontist and practice owner in Frisco, Texas, and the founder of White Glove Orthodontist. He writes about search, websites, and AI visibility for independent dental practice owners.