www.dentist.com.au keeping up with Australia's 21,657 dental practitioners

As the number of dental practitioners in Australia continues to increase, so do the listings on 20-year-old find-a-dentist website www.dentist.com.au.

The country now has some 21,657 dental practitoners (as at March 2016) - thanks to a doubling of graduate numbers and an influx of qualified migrants - and the website continues to list them all.

"www.dentist.com.au continues to increase in popularity with the public with more than one million searches a year now being made by people looking for a dentist," said Joseph Allbeury, publisher of the website and this magazine. "One of the reasons it is so popular is because we list every practice and every practitioner free of charge, making it a truly comprehensive resource.

"If you are a general dentist, specialist, dental hygienist, therapist, oral health therapist or dental prosthetist, then you will be listed on www.dentist.com.au and if you are not, then you are entitled to be."

Mr Allbeury said that any practitioner can easily obtain a username and password to the www.dentalcommunity.com.au at no cost and through this, can manage information about them displayed on the www.dentist.com.au website.

"Dentist.com.au is a 'hand-made' directory of every dental practitioner and every dental practice and denture clinic in Australia," Mr Allbeury said. "We don't scrape data or use robots to automatically collect information; instead, we let practitioners self-manage their details which is the only way to ensure it is correct.

"There is so much inaccurate and outdated information on the internet and it builds on itself because most directories are created by copying existing information on the internet from other directories without bothering to check if it is correct."

Mr Allbeury said that thankfully, because of the popularity of the site, keeping the information up-to-date has now become a self-perpetuating process.

"Most dental practitioners who Google their name or their practice will end up on our site," he said. "If their information is missing or incorrect, then they contact us immediately to remedy it.

"Traditionally, we have only heard from practice owners wanting to update information about their practice on the website. Increasingly, however, we are also seeing a lot of dentists who don't own a practice logging in to update the site to reflect their current working arrangements as well.

"The way dentists practice today is evolving rapidly and www.dentist.com.au reflects that. The sheer number of dentists now working in Australia and the resultant increased competitiveness for patients has resulted in a far more itinerant workforce. It is not uncommon, for example, for dentists to work at multiple practices over the course of a week in order to achieve full time employment."

Any practitioner can login at any time and update their own information on the website to ensure it reflects all of the practices they are working from.

"One of the key features of dentist.com.au is that it allows practitioners to manage the information published about them and their practice on the internet.

"We first started publishing a find-a-dentist website at www.dentist.com.au in 1997. In that time, the internet has evolved from a novelty to the heartbeat of modern life.

"Today, if a patient found your practice on the internet, chances are, they found out all about it on dentist.com.au."

How to update your details on www.dentist.com.au

For Dental Practitioners

1. Login to www.dentalcommunity.com.au with your free username & password
2. Click Where You Work
3. REMOVE yourself from any practices where you no longer work
4. Click ADD MORE to link yourself to practices where you now work
5. Select Personal Details from the Update menu and make other changes

Your updated details will appear immediately on dentist.com.au

For Practice Owners

1. Login to www.dentalcommunity.com.au with your free username & password
2. Click Where You Work
3. Click the name of your practice
4. Change any information required including adding and removing dentists

Your updated details will appear immediately on dentist.com.au

For Multi-site, Corporate or Health Fund Practices

Request a master account to be set-up that allows all locations to be managed from one central login.