AI assistants recommend vet practices whose basic facts they can find and check: what you charge, who covers emergencies at night, which animals you see and whether you are RCVS-accredited. Publish those facts as plain text on your website and Google Business Profile, keep your RCVS Find a Vet entry accurate, and write everything within RCVS and VMD rules. From 2026–27 the CMA's vets Order makes much of this compulsory anyway, so doing it well now pays twice.
Key takeaways
- Owners ask AI about price, emergencies and trust. Practices that answer those questions in plain text get mentioned.
- The CMA's Order requires website price lists, ownership disclosure and out-of-hours details, phased in from 23 December 2026 for larger groups and March 2027 for smaller practices.
- RCVS Find a Vet is the official place owners check a practice, its accreditation and a vet's registration.
- "Specialist", "Advanced Practitioner" and "Veterinary Hospital" are restricted terms. Prescription-only medicines can't be advertised to owners.
- Check what AI says about your practice monthly, with the same questions each time.
What do pet owners ask AI when they're looking for a vet?
They ask about urgency, cost and confidence, usually with a town or postcode. The prompts below are illustrative examples of the kinds of questions owners ask, not measured search volumes.
| Intent | Example prompts (illustrative) |
|---|---|
| Urgent | "My dog ate chocolate, which vet is open now in Reading?", "emergency vet near Harrogate on a Sunday" |
| Comparison | "Independent vet vs a big chain vet in Exeter, what's the difference?", "which vets in Leeds have a cat-friendly waiting room?" |
| Local | "Vet near Kentish Town that sees rabbits", "equine vet covering the Cotswolds" |
| Price | "How much is a dog neuter in Cardiff?", "cheapest place for cat vaccinations in Norwich" |
| Trust | "Is [practice name] RCVS accredited?", "who owns [practice name]?", "reviews of [practice name]" |
Where does AI get its answers about vets?
From public pages an owner could open themselves: your website, your Google listing, the RCVS's own services and review sites. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on pages that are indexed and eligible to show a snippet, with no extra technical requirements (Google Search Central, 2025).
| Source | What it is | Why it matters for vets |
|---|---|---|
| Your website | Services, prices, team, emergency cover | The only source you fully control, and where the CMA requires your price list. |
| Google Business Profile | Your listing in Search and Maps | Hours, phone number and reviews for "vet near me" questions. |
| RCVS Find a Vet | The RCVS search for vets, vet nurses and practices | Owners can filter for practices accredited under the Practice Standards Scheme (RCVS, n.d.). Practices will also have to submit information to it under the CMA's Order. |
| Practice Standards Scheme | The RCVS's voluntary accreditation | Covers hygiene, 24-hour emergency cover, training, equipment and cost estimation, with assessments every four years. The RCVS says 65% of UK practices are accredited (RCVS, n.d.). |
| CMA case pages | The vets market investigation | News coverage and explainers about prices and ownership often trace back here (CMA, 2026). |
| US equivalents | AAHA accreditation, state veterinary boards | The American Animal Hospital Association runs voluntary practice accreditation in the US and Canada and a hospital locator for owners. |
What does the CMA's vets Order change?
It turns price and ownership transparency from good practice into a legal duty. The CMA published its final report on 24 March 2026 and made the substantive Order on 22 September 2026. The first phase applies to larger businesses from 23 December 2026, with longer timeframes for smaller ones (CMA, 2026).
The CMA's guidance for smaller businesses says that, from the next working day after 22 March 2027, practices must (CMA, 2026):
- display group or network ownership "clearly and prominently" on websites, premises and communications;
- publish staff qualifications, PSS accreditation and out-of-hours provider details;
- publish a website price list for the standard services in Schedule 1 of the Order that you offer, and display it in each premises;
- publish prices for your most commonly sold flea, tick and worming products, with a link to the VMD's register of online retailers;
- publish pet care plan details and cremation options with prices.
Written estimates, itemised bills and prescription changes follow from September 2027. Rely on the Order itself for exact wording. For AI visibility the point is simple: the information the CMA requires is exactly what owners ask assistants about.
The 8-step plan to get your practice recommended
Steps 1 to 3 can be done this week.
Check your RCVS Find a Vet entry and your vets' register entries. Owners use Find a Vet to locate practices and check PSS accreditation (RCVS, n.d.). Make sure practice details match your website and Google profile exactly. Watch for the RCVS web form the CMA's Order requires you to complete.
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile. Use your real-world practice name with no added keywords, pick the most specific category, and set accurate hours (Google Business Profile Help, n.d.). If a separate provider covers nights, don't show 24-hour opening for your branch.
Publish emergency cover in plain text. RCVS guidance says emergency cover information must be publicly available, "either via the practice website or by other public means", and that practices that outsource cover must not claim to provide 24-hour cover without full information about the service (RCVS, n.d.). Name the provider, its address and phone number, and say what happens when owners call you out of hours.
Publish your price list now, not in 2027. Put it on an HTML page that is easy to reach from your homepage, show prices including VAT, and keep it current. "From" prices with a short note on what changes the cost answer price questions honestly.
Write pages around animals and situations. One page each for cats, dogs, rabbits and exotics if you see them, plus neutering, dentals, vaccinations and end-of-life care. Say which vets lead each service and their qualifications. Name the clinical service, never a prescription product: VMD guidance says prescription-only medicines "should not be made to the public", educational content must not name prescription products or brands, and generic searches such as "arthritis in dogs" should not trigger ads for them (VMD, 2026).
Use titles the RCVS allows. Only vets on the Specialist list may use "specialist". Others may say "having a particular interest in", "experienced in" or "practice limited to". "Advanced Practitioner" needs a place on that list, and "Veterinary Hospital" is misleading unless the practice is accredited as one. Advertising must also follow the CAP Code (RCVS, n.d.).
Add structured data and collect reviews fairly. Schema.org's VeterinaryCare type sits under MedicalOrganization, not LocalBusiness (Schema.org, n.d.), so ask your developer to declare both types and include the address, phone, hours and URL Google documents for local businesses (Google Search Central, n.d.). Ask every client for a review the same way, with no incentive (Google Business Profile Help, n.d.). UK law bans fake and incentivised reviews (CMA, 2025).
Let AI crawlers read your site. OpenAI says sites that block OAI-SearchBot won't appear in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI, n.d.). Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot (Perplexity, n.d.), and Anthropic says blocking Claude-SearchBot may reduce visibility in Claude's answers (Anthropic, n.d.). If a group runs your website, ask head office to check robots.txt and any firewall.
Mistakes that keep vet practices out of AI answers
- "24-hour care" with no detail. RCVS guidance treats that as unacceptable when cover is outsourced, and it leaves assistants unable to say where to go at 2am.
- Hiding group ownership. Owners ask who owns a practice. The CMA's Order now requires you to say.
- Prices only over the phone. An assistant can't quote what isn't published.
- Naming prescription brands in blog posts, ads or hashtags. Talk about the condition and the consultation instead.
- Calling a vet a "specialist" without RCVS listing, or using "hospital" without accreditation.
- Different hours on different sites. Your website, Google and Find a Vet should match.
How do you check whether AI recommends your practice?
Ask the assistants the questions your clients ask, and record what comes back. Repeat monthly.
- Pick 10 prompts from the table above, using your town and two neighbouring areas, and include an emergency prompt.
- Run each in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google (AI Overviews and AI Mode), Gemini, Claude and Copilot, in a private window where possible. Answers vary by user and by day.
- Note whether you are named, who else is named, and which sources are cited.
- If an answer gets your hours, prices or ownership wrong, trace the source and fix it.
- In Google Search Console, AI feature traffic is included in the Performance report under "Web" (Google Search Central, 2025).
SearchCrow runs these checks for you. It asks the main AI assistants the questions pet owners ask about vets in your area, shows whether your practice is mentioned and which sources they rely on, and suggests what to fix first. It is built for independent practices and small groups.
FAQ
Why doesn't ChatGPT recommend my vet practice? Usually because the facts owners ask about are hard to find. Assistants that search the web build answers from your website, your Google Business Profile, the RCVS Find a Vet service and review sites. If your prices, out-of-hours arrangements, species seen and accreditation are missing or buried in PDFs, a practice that states them plainly is easier to recommend.
Do I have to publish my prices online? Yes, once the CMA's Veterinary Services Market Investigation Order applies to you. The CMA's guidance says practices must publish a price list for the standard services in Schedule 1 of the Order on their website and in each premises. For smaller businesses this applies from the next working day after 22 March 2027; the first phase for larger groups starts on 23 December 2026.
Can I describe a vet as a specialist on our website? Only if they are on the RCVS Specialist list. RCVS supporting guidance says vets who are not listed should not say they are "specialising in" an area, but can say they have "a particular interest in", are "experienced in" or that their "practice is limited to" it. "Advanced Practitioner" is likewise reserved for vets on the RCVS Advanced Practitioner list.
Can we name flea or worming products in our marketing? Not prescription ones. VMD guidance says prescription-only veterinary medicines should not be advertised to the public, and educational content must not name prescription products or brands. Promote the service, such as a parasite-control consultation or health plan, rather than a POM-V product.
Does our out-of-hours provider need to be named online? Yes. RCVS guidance says emergency cover information must be publicly available, for example on your website, and that practices which outsource cover must not claim to provide 24-hour emergency cover without full information about the service. The CMA's Order also requires practices to publish their out-of-hours provider details.
Sources
- Find a Vet, RCVS
- Accredited practices, RCVS
- Protection of title, advertising, and endorsement, RCVS
- 24-hour emergency first aid and pain relief, RCVS
- Veterinary services for household pets, CMA
- What veterinary businesses need to do following the CMA's final report, CMA
- Advertise veterinary medicines legally, Veterinary Medicines Directorate
- VeterinaryCare, Schema.org
- AI features and your website, Google Search Central
- Local business structured data, Google Search Central
- Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Google Business Profile Help
- Get reviews on your Business Profile, Google Business Profile Help
- Fake reviews (CMA208), CMA
- Overview of OpenAI crawlers, OpenAI
- Perplexity crawlers, Perplexity
- Anthropic crawler FAQ, Anthropic