Reviews, Rankings, and the Rules That Just Changed: Dr. Len Tau Returns | Ep. 166

Seven hundred reviews and convinced you're ranking. You're not. You're just looking at yourself on your own Wi-Fi.

That's one of the most expensive misconceptions in dental online reputation - and it's one Len Tau has been correcting for years across 11,000 practices. He's back on the Tooth Sleuth for a second time, and this episode is sharper than the first.

Dr. Len Tau is a dentist, speaker, author, host of the Raving Patients podcast, and dental division lead at BirdEye. He is also the founder of Supercharge, the fastest-growing team-and-business focused dental event in the country. In this episode, he and Greg Essenmacher dig into the Google review rule changes that just hit in April 2025, what practices are still doing wrong, the velocity metric that matters more than volume, and what it actually takes to build an event that sells out vendor slots years in advance.

They discuss:

- The biggest myth in dental reputation management: why review count does not equal ranking - and what actually moves the needle on Google Maps

- Why velocity beats volume - and the three-month-old practice with 42 reviews that was outranking an established practice with 500

- The April 2025 Google rule changes that most practices don't know about yet: why team member name-dropping in reviews is now a red flag, and why tap devices in the office need to go in the drawer permanently

- Why reviews done inside the physical office are now a liability - and how to get reviews done at home instead

- The Yelp loophole that still works in California - and why Meta reviews are essentially irrelevant

- The negative Google review removal service Len launched in February: 300 reviews removed, $450 per removal, no charge unless it comes down

- Supercharge: what the event is, why it's team-and-business focused with zero clinical content, and what's coming September 25-27 in Fort Lauderdale - including an eighties-themed concert and a yacht party that came back

- Two standout products Len can't stop recommending: First In for scheduling and Sinch Pay for practice payment infrastructure