Healthcare search has split into two completely different worlds
If you've been paying attention to what Google has done to healthcare search over the last two years, you've probably felt a growing unease. AI Overviews are everywhere. They answer clinical questions before anyone clicks a link. Organic traffic to medical content sites is cratering.
But here's what most doctors and their marketing agencies are missing: not all healthcare searches are being treated the same way. Google has quietly created two distinct zones, and understanding the difference is the single most important thing you can do for your practice marketing right now.
Zone 1 is clinical and informational queries. Treatment options, symptoms, conditions, procedures. This is where AI Overviews have absolutely taken over. According to BrightEdge's Generative Parser data from December 2025, treatment and procedure queries now have 100% AI Overview presence (up from 45% in 2023). Pain-related queries sit at 98% (up from 58%). Symptoms and conditions queries are at 93% (up from 57%).
The impact is brutal. A Seer Interactive study found that organic click-through rates dropped 61% when AI Overviews appear, falling from 1.76% to just 0.61%. Zero-click searches increased from 56% to 69% between May 2024 and May 2025. Gartner predicts traffic from typical searches will drop 25% by end of 2026.
Zone 2 is local provider queries. "Dermatologist near me." "Cardiologist near me." "Best family doctor near me." And this zone tells a completely different story.
Google tested AI Overviews on local healthcare searches. Then deliberately removed them.
This is the data point that should change how you think about your marketing spend.
In December 2023, 100% of local provider queries had AI Overviews. Google was testing them everywhere. By December 2024, that number dropped to 14%. By December 2025, it hit 0%.
Zero per cent.
Google ran the experiment. It put AI-generated answers on searches like "paediatric dentist near me" and "best orthopaedic surgeon in Melbourne." And then it pulled them. Completely. According to BrightEdge's healthcare AI Overview research from December 2025, not a single local provider query in the healthcare space currently triggers an AI Overview.
This wasn't an accident or a bug. Google made a deliberate decision.
Why Google won't touch local healthcare searches with AI
The reason comes down to three letters: YMYL. Your Money or Your Life.
Google has always applied stricter quality standards to queries that could directly impact someone's health, safety, or financial wellbeing. But recommending a specific doctor by name in an AI-generated answer? That's a liability nightmare.
Think about it from Google's perspective. If their AI Overview recommends a cardiologist and that cardiologist turns out to be under investigation, or has poor outcomes, or simply isn't the right fit, Google has effectively made a medical referral. That's a level of responsibility no technology company wants to carry.
There's also the trust problem. Local healthcare decisions are deeply personal. They depend on location, insurance, specific conditions, referral networks, cultural preferences, and a dozen other factors that an AI summary simply cannot account for. Google knows this. And more importantly, Google knows that users know this.
So instead of trying to answer "who should I see for my knee pain," Google does what it's always done best for local queries: it serves the Map Pack, shows Google Business Profiles, and lets patients make their own informed choice. The traditional local search experience remains intact.
For specialist doctors, this is extraordinarily good news.
Your patient acquisition queries are protected
Let's be specific about what this means for you.
The searches that actually bring patients through your door are not the ones asking "what is a rotator cuff tear" or "treatment options for atrial fibrillation." Those are informational queries, and yes, AI Overviews have swallowed them whole.
The searches that matter for your practice are the ones with local intent. "Shoulder surgeon near me." "Dermatologist Brisbane." "Best ENT specialist Sydney." These are the queries where someone has already decided they need to see a specialist. They're looking for you specifically, in your area, right now.
And these queries remain completely untouched by AI Overviews.
While content marketers are scrambling to figure out how to rank in a world where Google answers the question before anyone clicks, your local visibility channel is operating exactly as it always has. The Map Pack still appears. Google Business Profiles still dominate the top of results. Reviews still influence decisions. Proximity still matters.
This is why we tell every specialist we work with: local SEO isn't just a good investment. Right now, it's the safest investment in healthcare marketing.
The local SEO fundamentals that still work
Because local healthcare search hasn't been disrupted by AI, the fundamentals that have always driven local rankings still apply. Nothing exotic here, but getting these right is what separates the practices that dominate from the ones that don't show up.
NAP consistency
Your Name, Address, and Phone number need to be identical across every platform. Your website, Google Business Profile, Healthshare, HotDoc, HealthEngine, medical directories, hospital listings. Same abbreviations. Same formatting. Same phone number. Google cross-references these signals to verify legitimacy, and inconsistencies erode trust.
Local citations
Every directory listing that includes your practice information is a citation. The more consistent citations you have across authoritative health directories, the stronger Google's confidence in your practice data. Focus on Australian healthcare directories first, then general business directories.
Reviews
Patient reviews remain one of the strongest local ranking signals. Volume matters, but so does recency and response. A practice with 200 reviews from three years ago ranks worse than one with 80 reviews that are steadily accumulating. Responding to every review, positive or negative, signals to both Google and prospective patients that you're engaged and attentive.
Local content
Create pages on your website that speak to the specific areas you serve. Not thin doorway pages, but genuine content about your practice locations, the communities you serve, and the conditions you treat in context of your local area.
Google Business Profile is the single most important ranking factor
If you're going to invest time in one thing, make it your Google Business Profile. Full stop.
Your GBP is the centrepiece of your local search presence. It's often the first and only thing a patient sees before they call. And Google gives enormous weight to GBP signals when deciding who appears in the Map Pack.
Here's what a well-optimised GBP looks like for a specialist doctor:
- Primary category set correctly (e.g., "Orthopaedic Surgeon," not just "Doctor")
- Secondary categories covering your subspecialties
- Service area defined with specific suburbs and regions
- Professional photos of you, your clinic, and your team
- Regular posts sharing updates, health tips, or practice news
- Complete Q&A section addressing common patient questions
- Accurate hours, including after-hours availability
- Booking link pointing directly to your appointment system
The practices that treat their GBP as a living, active marketing channel consistently outrank those that set it up once and forgot about it.
The risk of ignoring local SEO while chasing content marketing
Here's where we see a lot of practices making a costly mistake.
They see the AI Overview trend and think: "I need to create more blog content so I show up in AI answers." So they invest thousands in articles about conditions, treatments, and procedures. They hire content writers. They publish weekly.
And their organic traffic from clinical content drops anyway, because AI Overviews are answering those questions before anyone clicks through to their site.
Meanwhile, their Google Business Profile sits neglected. Their directory listings have the wrong phone number. They haven't responded to a review in six months. And the local searches that would actually bring patients through the door are being won by competitors who bothered to get the basics right.
Content marketing still has a role, absolutely. A strong website with authoritative content supports your E-E-A-T signals and can help you appear in AI Overviews (as we've written about before). But if you have a limited budget and need to prioritise, local SEO delivers a far more reliable return right now.
With ChatGPT now reaching 800 million weekly users and Google Gemini surpassing 750 million monthly users, the informational search landscape will only get more competitive. 92% of marketers already plan on optimising for AI-powered search engines. That's a crowded, uncertain battlefield.
Local SEO, by contrast, is a proven channel with clear rules and measurable results.
What specialist doctors should focus on right now
If you take nothing else from this article, here's your checklist.
This week:
- Claim and verify your Google Business Profile if you haven't already
- Audit your NAP consistency across your website, GBP, and top five directories
- Respond to every unanswered Google review
This month:
- Add professional photos to your GBP (clinic, headshot, team)
- Set your primary and secondary GBP categories correctly
- Publish your first GBP post
- Check that your website has a dedicated page for each practice location
This quarter:
- Build out citations across major Australian healthcare directories
- Implement a system for requesting reviews from satisfied patients
- Create location-specific service pages on your website
- Audit your competitors' GBP profiles to identify gaps you can exploit
Ongoing:
- Post to your GBP at least twice a month
- Respond to every new review within 48 hours
- Keep all directory listings current when anything changes
- Monitor your local pack rankings for your target keywords
The bottom line
The healthcare search landscape is splitting in two. Clinical queries are being consumed by AI. Local provider queries are being protected by Google.
As a specialist doctor, your most valuable search queries, the ones that actually put patients in your waiting room, fall squarely in the protected zone. That's not going to change anytime soon.
Local SEO isn't glamorous. It's not the latest shiny object. But it's the safest, most reliable investment you can make in your practice's digital marketing right now. And the doctors who get this right today will be the ones patients find tomorrow.
At BusyBeeDoc, we build local search strategies specifically for specialist doctors in Australia. If you want to make sure your practice is showing up when patients in your area are searching, let's talk.