Terms of Use

1What the Site Is

The Site is an advertising and information directory that identifies highly rated dental practices by city. It is a publisher of opinion and public data.

We are not a dental practice, a dental referral service, a healthcare provider, an insurer, a credentialing body, or an accrediting organization. We do not provide dental, medical, or health advice. We do not evaluate clinical skill, treatment quality, safety, infection control, billing practices, or fitness for any individual patient.

2For Patients and Visitors

Read this section before relying on anything on the Site.

• Listings and designations are not recommendations, referrals, endorsements, or guarantees of any practice, provider, or outcome.
• Nothing on the Site is a substitute for professional dental or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have a dental emergency, contact a licensed provider or emergency services.
• Verify a provider's license, credentials, specialty status, insurance participation, and standing directly with your state dental board and the practice itself before making a decision.
• Practice information can be inaccurate or out of date. Hours, addresses, phone numbers, services, providers, and insurance acceptance change without notice.
• Your relationship with any practice you contact is between you and that practice. We are not a party to it and are not responsible for the care provided, the fees charged, or any dispute that arises.

3Listings, Designations, and Selection

Listings are published without charge. A practice does not pay to be listed or to receive a designation. We identify and evaluate practices using publicly available data.

Selection criteria. To qualify for a Top Rated Dentist designation, a practice must meet our published criteria, including a minimum Google rating of 4.5 and the other requirements described on our methodology page.

Licensure check. Before designating a practice, we confirm that at least one dentist associated with that practice appears as licensed in the public license lookup maintained by the dental board of the state in which the practice operates. This is a limited, point-in-time check of a single provider. We do not verify every provider at a practice, do not verify specialty or board certification, do not review disciplinary history, and do not monitor licensure on an ongoing basis. A license can lapse, be suspended, or be revoked after we check it. Verify any provider's current license and standing directly with your state dental board before making a decision.

Designations and scores are opinion. Designations and scores are our editorial opinion based on the data described on our methodology page. They are not statements of objective fact about any practice's clinical quality and should not be read as such.

City pages are not ranked lists. Designated practices that have not purchased a Featured Listing are displayed in randomized order, and that order changes between visits. Position on a city page is not a rank, a placing, or a statement that one designated practice is better than another. Featured practices appear above the rotating listings and are labeled as described below.

Coverage is incomplete. Public data sources are imperfect and change over time. We cannot identify every practice that might qualify in a given city. A practice may be absent because its data was unavailable, incomplete, inconsistent across sources, or not surfaced by our process, and not because it failed to qualify. Absence from the Site is not a negative finding about any practice, and no statement about listed practices should be read as a comparative claim about practices that are not listed.

We may change listings. We may add, revise, reorder, or remove any listing, designation, or score at any time as data improves or criteria change.

Paid placement is disclosed. Some designated practices purchase a Featured Listing, which affects position and presentation on a city page but does not affect whether a practice is designated or what score it receives. Paid placement is labeled on the Site as “Featured / Sponsored.”

4Scores and Methodology

Designated practices receive a score out of 10 derived from publicly available Google review data, using average star rating and total review count.

The calculation treats every practice as if it began with 75 reviews at our 4.5 qualifying baseline, then moves toward the practice's actual rating as real review volume grows. A small number of high ratings will not by itself produce a top score. Scores are capped at 9.9. Because scores are calculated only for practices that already meet the qualifying criteria, the published range reflects differences among designated practices and is not a scale applied to all dentists.

The formula and its constants are published on our methodology page. A score reflects the data available at the time of designation. Issued badges and award assets are year-stamped snapshots and are not updated retroactively.

5If You Are a Listed Practice

If your practice appears on the Site without a paid listing, this section applies to you.

Corrections. If information about your practice is inaccurate, email [email protected] with the practice name, city, the specific item that is wrong, and the correct information. We will review and correct confirmed errors within a reasonable time at no charge.

Removal requests. You may request removal of your practice from the Site. Email [email protected] from an address associated with the practice, identify the listing, and state that you are authorized to make the request. We will process verified removal requests within a reasonable time. We may retain a record of the request.

Claiming a listing. You may claim your listing to update practice details. We may require verification that you are authorized to act for the practice.

Badge use. If your practice earns a designation, you may display the corresponding badge and award assets at no charge, subject to our Badge Usage Guidelines. Badges are stamped with the city and year earned. You may keep displaying a badge for any year you earned it. You may not alter the city, year, score, wording, or design, display a badge for a year or city you were not designated in, present a prior-year badge as a current designation, or imply certification, accreditation, affiliation, or clinical endorsement.

6Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Scrape, crawl, harvest, or bulk-download Site content by automated means, except as permitted by our robots.txt
• Copy, republish, resell, or create a derivative directory from Site content
• Reverse engineer our scoring methodology for competing commercial use
• Submit false, misleading, defamatory, infringing, or unlawful content
• Submit protected health information, patient identities, or patient images
• Impersonate any practice, provider, or person, or claim a listing you are not authorized to claim
• Interfere with the Site's operation or security, or attempt unauthorized access
• Use the Site to harass any practice or provider

7Content You Submit

If you submit content, including practice information, photos, logos, descriptions, or messages, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, display, reproduce, resize, and distribute it in connection with operating and promoting the Site.

You represent that you have the rights to everything you submit, including photographs of people and any third-party trademarks, and that the information is accurate and not misleading.

8Third-Party Data and Links

The Site incorporates data from third-party sources, including Google. That data is provided by those sources and is subject to their terms. We do not control it, cannot guarantee its accuracy, and are not responsible for errors in it.

The Site links to third-party websites. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, practices, or privacy handling.

9Complaints About Content

Inaccuracy or defamation. If you believe content about your practice is false, email [email protected] with the specific statement, why it is inaccurate, and any supporting documentation. We will review it promptly.

Copyright. To report material you believe infringes your copyright, send a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to our designated agent at [email protected], including identification of the work, identification of the material and its location, your contact information, a statement of good-faith belief that use is unauthorized, a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and you are authorized to act, and your signature. We will respond to valid notices and may remove material and terminate repeat infringers.

Third-party content. Some material on the Site originates with others, including practice-submitted descriptions, photos, and logos, and rating data supplied by third-party platforms. As to that material, we act as a provider of an interactive computer service under 47 U.S.C. section 230 and are not the publisher or speaker of it. Our own selections, rankings, and scores are our editorial opinion, as described in Sections 3 and 4.

10Intellectual Property

The Site, its design, page layouts, compilation of listings, scoring methodology, badge and award designs, and the TopRatedDentist.com name and logo are owned by us or our licensors and protected by intellectual property law. Nothing on the Site grants any license to use them except as expressly stated.

11Disclaimers

The Site and all content are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, and you use them at your own risk and discretion.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, and any warranty of uninterrupted or error-free operation.

We do not warrant that listings, designations, scores, contact details, hours, credentials, or any other information are accurate, complete, or current.

Our licensure check is limited as described in Section 3. Beyond that check, we do not verify clinical quality, provider credentials, specialty or board certification, disciplinary history, malpractice history, insurance participation, or any practice's suitability for you, and we do not monitor any of them over time. Any decision you make about choosing, contacting, or engaging a dental practice is yours alone, and you are responsible for doing your own verification.

12Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Site, its content, or your use of it will not exceed the amount you paid to us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. If you have not paid us anything, we have no liability to you.

We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost patients, lost data, or loss of goodwill.

We are not liable for the acts or omissions of any dental practice, provider, or third party listed on or linked from the Site, for the care any practice provides, or for any dispute between you and a practice.

These limits apply regardless of the theory of liability and even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of certain damages. In those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the smallest extent permitted by law. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, including liability for fraud or for personal injury caused by negligence.

13Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless UniqueDentist.com LLC d/b/a TopRatedDentist.com, its members, officers, and contractors from any claim, loss, liability, or expense, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising from your use of the Site, content you submit, your use of any badge or award asset, your advertising or marketing claims, or your breach of these Terms.

14Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to conflict of laws rules.

Informal resolution first. Before starting arbitration, the party with a complaint will send written notice describing the dispute and the relief sought. The parties will try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days after that notice.

Binding arbitration. If unresolved, the dispute will be settled by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules, seated in Montgomery County, Maryland, before a single arbitrator. The award may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Individual basis only. Claims will be brought only in an individual capacity. Class actions, collective actions, class arbitration, and consolidation are waived. If this paragraph is found unenforceable, the entire arbitration agreement is void and disputes will be heard in the state or federal courts located in Montgomery County, Maryland, where both parties consent to personal jurisdiction and venue.

Exceptions. Either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies, and either party may seek injunctive or equitable relief in court to protect its trademarks, badges, or other intellectual property.

15Changes

We may update these Terms. Material changes take effect when posted with a new "Last updated" date. Continued use after that date means you accept the update.

16General

These Terms, plus the Privacy Policy and any applicable Featured Listing Terms, are the entire agreement about your use of the Site. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

17Contact