We hope everyone is having a nice December so far. We’ve been having a lot of fun with the Advent Calendar for Therapists this month -- honestly, way more fun than we expected -- and we’re slightly relieved that the Therapist Search Report itself has been a bit quieter lately. Fewer questionable therapist directories? That's a gift for us all!
This week fits that pattern. Most of the usual players stayed put. Not to sound like a broken record, but LinkedIn and Psychology Today remain the most consistent fixtures when people search for therapists by name, and nothing challenged that dominance this week.
Top 30 Websites for Therapists
These domains show up the most when searching for a specific therapist by name.
| Website | Domain Popularity | Search Result Position | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 1 week | 4 week | Average | 1 week | 4 week | |
| linkedin.com |
79.0
|
0.0 | ▼ 0.5 |
7.1
|
▼ 0.2 | 0.0 |
| psychologytoday.com |
73.9
|
▲ 0.3 | ▲ 0.8 |
2.6
|
▲ 0.2 | ▼ 0.3 |
| facebook.com |
55.6
|
▲ 2.2 | ▲ 2.7 |
18.4
|
▼ 0.3 | ▲ 0.1 |
| instagram.com |
37.8
|
▲ 1.1 | ▲ 4.8 |
17.0
|
0.0 | ▼ 1.4 |
| zocdoc.com |
31.3
|
▲ 0.5 | ▲ 1.3 |
7.7
|
▲ 0.2 | ▲ 0.5 |
| mapquest.com |
30.9
|
▼ 0.9 | ▼ 1.0 |
17.4
|
▼ 1.6 | ▼ 2.3 |
| npidb.org |
22.2
|
▲ 0.2 | ▼ 1.3 |
18.8
|
0.0 | ▲ 0.4 |
| healthgrades.com |
20.2
|
▲ 1.2 | ▲ 1.8 |
20.5
|
▲ 1.3 | ▼ 1.3 |
| therapyfinder.com |
19.8
|
▼ 1.3 | ▲ 2.1 |
14.0
|
▼ 2.2 | ▼ 0.8 |
| headway.co |
19.7
|
0.0 | ▲ 0.3 |
6.7
|
▲ 0.6 | ▲ 0.1 |
| rocketreach.co |
18.1
|
▲ 1.5 | ▼ 0.3 |
18.8
|
▲ 1.0 | ▲ 0.1 |
| sharecare.com |
16.2
|
▼ 0.8 | ▼ 2.2 |
21.3
|
▲ 0.9 | ▼ 2.0 |
| youtube.com |
15.6
|
▲ 0.8 | 0.0 |
25.2
|
▲ 1.8 | ▲ 1.4 |
| yelp.com |
15.5
|
▲ 0.1 | ▲ 0.2 |
21.6
|
0.0 | ▼ 2.2 |
| npiprofile.com |
14.6
|
▲ 1.9 | ▼ 0.8 |
33.2
|
▲ 0.3 | ▼ 1.0 |
| zoominfo.com |
14.5
|
▲ 1.1 | ▲ 0.9 |
21.8
|
▲ 1.9 | ▼ 1.7 |
| researchgate.net |
13.7
|
▲ 0.1 | ▼ 1.2 |
40.1
|
▼ 3.8 | ▼ 4.5 |
| mind-diagnostics.org |
13.5
|
▼ 0.1 | ▼ 0.7 |
4.4
|
0.0 | ▼ 0.4 |
| 7cups.com |
12.8
|
▼ 0.4 | ▲ 0.3 |
12.0
|
▲ 0.8 | ▼ 1.0 |
| therapyden.com |
12.8
|
▼ 0.3 | ▲ 0.2 |
10.1
|
▲ 3.1 | ▲ 2.8 |
| medicalnewstoday.com |
12.5
|
▲ 0.2 | ▲ 0.3 |
11.0
|
▼ 0.9 | ▼ 0.9 |
| growtherapy.com |
11.3
|
▲ 0.2 | ▲ 1.1 |
23.7
|
▲ 1.9 | ▼ 4.0 |
| therapist.com |
10.8
|
▼ 0.3 | ▼ 2.8 |
10.0
|
▲ 0.4 | ▲ 1.4 |
| webmd.com |
9.7
|
▼ 1.2 | ▼ 0.8 |
28.4
|
▲ 0.8 | ▼ 3.0 |
| findatopdoc.com |
9.4
|
▲ 0.1 | ▼ 1.2 |
25.6
|
▲ 1.0 | 0.0 |
| tiktok.com |
8.9
|
▼ 0.9 | ▼ 1.5 |
51.6
|
▼ 0.9 | ▼ 6.9 |
| healthline.com |
8.7
|
▲ 0.5 | 0.0 |
12.1
|
▼ 2.2 | ▼ 1.5 |
| helloalma.com |
8.4
|
▲ 0.2 | ▲ 0.4 |
8.5
|
▼ 1.4 | ▲ 0.6 |
| usnews.com |
7.9
|
▲ 1.6 | ▲ 2.0 |
32.6
|
▲ 8.3 | ▼ 0.6 |
| findatherapist.com |
6.9
|
▲ 1.0 | ▼ 0.6 |
17.6
|
▼ 1.0 | ▼ 0.6 |
The top domains continue to look very familiar. LinkedIn, Psychology Today, Facebook, and Instagram are still the core group showing up most often.
One small but interesting note in the top 30: usnews.com saw a fairly noticeable improvement in average position this week. It’s not suddenly a major player, but it did jump enough to stand out compared to the otherwise steady list.
Top 10 Biggest Shifts in Domain Popularity
These therapist directories and other websites are now appearing more (or less) frequently when people search for specific therapists' names.
Compared to 1 week ago:
| Website | Score | Change |
|---|---|---|
| pleasework.dev | 6.33 | ▲ 2.58 |
| facebook.com | 55.58 | ▲ 2.25 |
| npiprofile.com | 14.58 | ▲ 1.91 |
| usnews.com | 7.92 | ▲ 1.59 |
| rocketreach.co | 18.08 | ▲ 1.50 |
| therapyfinder.com | 19.75 | ▼ 1.33 |
| webmd.com | 9.67 | ▼ 1.25 |
| healthgrades.com | 20.25 | ▲ 1.17 |
| instagram.com | 37.75 | ▲ 1.08 |
| zoominfo.com | 14.50 | ▲ 1.08 |
Compared to 4 weeks ago:
| Website | Score | Change |
|---|---|---|
| therapysolutionsforkids.com | 5.75 | ▼ 6.50 |
| pleasework.dev | 6.33 | ▲ 5.91 |
| instagram.com | 37.75 | ▲ 4.75 |
| therapist.com | 10.83 | ▼ 2.84 |
| facebook.com | 55.58 | ▲ 2.66 |
| sharecare.com | 16.25 | ▼ 2.17 |
| therapyfinder.com | 19.75 | ▲ 2.08 |
| idcrawl.com | 5.25 | ▼ 2.00 |
| usnews.com | 7.92 | ▲ 2.00 |
| providerwire.com | 6.58 | ▼ 1.84 |
Most of the movement this week was mild, but one domain is worth calling out for being… odd. pleasework.dev showed one of the larger week-over-week increases, which immediately raised eyebrows.
Digging a bit, it appears to be related to Therapy Den. Our current theory is that this is a development or testing domain used by the same team, and that some therapist profiles were accidentally left indexable by Google. Normally, you’d explicitly prevent search engines from indexing a site like this, where it's for development or testing eyes only. We’ll keep an eye on it ourselves to see if it disappears just as quietly as it showed up.
Aside from that, a few familiar sites nudged up or down by a point or two, but nothing else really broke the pattern.
Domain Presence in the Top 10
This is a breakdown of the most common domains found at each search result position. The first 10 positions are the most critical, as they appear on the first page, so this breaks it down for positions 1 through 10.
| Website | Search Result Position | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#1
|
#2
|
#3
|
#4
|
#5
|
#6
|
#7
|
#8
|
#9
|
#10
|
|
| psychologytoday.com | 45.4% | 22.6% | 3.9% | 4.6% | 5.2% | 5.0% | 6.1% | 6.0% | 7.2% | 6.1% |
| mind-diagnostics.org | 5.7% | 2.5% | 2.5% | 1.7% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
| linkedin.com | 1.7% | 5.5% | 12.6% | 13.5% | 10.7% | 8.7% | 6.7% | 6.3% | 4.5% | 5.3% |
| humantold.com | 1.2% | 2.9% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| headway.co | 0.8% | 3.4% | 3.8% | 2.6% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 1.1% | 1.0% | 1.1% | 0.9% |
| zocdoc.com | 0.7% | 2.8% | 9.9% | 5.6% | 4.6% | 3.3% | 3.2% | 1.8% | 1.6% | 1.9% |
| growtherapy.com | 0.6% | 2.6% | 2.0% | 0.6% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.4% | 0.5% |
| sondermind.com | 0.3% | 2.2% | 1.6% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| mapquest.com | 0.3% | 0.6% | 1.0% | 3.0% | 1.9% | 2.1% | 3.3% | 2.3% | 2.2% | 2.1% |
| therapyden.com | 0.2% | 2.0% | 2.3% | 1.4% | 1.0% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.4% |
| facebook.com | 0.1% | 1.1% | 3.2% | 3.0% | 3.6% | 3.1% | 4.0% | 4.2% | 4.2% | 4.0% |
| instagram.com | 0.1% | 0.7% | 1.8% | 3.3% | 3.4% | 3.2% | 2.5% | 2.3% | 3.5% | 2.3% |
| rocketreach.co | 0.0% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 1.2% | 0.8% | 1.4% | 1.2% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 2.0% |
| therapyfinder.com | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.6% | 1.0% | 2.7% | 2.1% | 2.0% | 1.4% | 1.6% | 1.3% |
| npidb.org | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.5% | 0.7% | 0.7% | 1.3% | 0.8% | 1.3% | 1.3% | 1.9% |
| All Others | 42.9% | 50.1% | 53.6% | 57.4% | 62.5% | 66.5% | 67.1% | 70.7% | 70.4% | 71.1% |
At the very top of search results, the story hasn’t changed. Psychology Today still dominates the #1 spot by a wide margin, and LinkedIn continues to occupy much of the rest of page one.
Stability, at least in this context, is usually a good thing.
All in all, a calm week -- and in December, that’s perfectly fine. We’ve loved seeing therapists engage with the Advent Calendar for Therapists, and we’re grateful this month hasn’t brought too many new “what on earth is this site?” moments.
We’ll wrap this one up by wishing everyone a wonderful holiday week. Thanks for reading along this year, and we’ll be back next week!
Jon
