Practo Profile vs Clinic Website: What Doctors in India Should Know

What does a Practo profile give a doctor?

A Practo profile puts your name, qualifications, clinic details and patient feedback on a platform that patients already use to search for doctors. It is a listing inside someone else's product, built for discovery and booking.

Practo's own page for doctors says you can create a free Practo profile in three steps: register or find yourself on Practo.com, add your profile information and verify your details. Practo says verifying your medical registration and qualification lets you be listed as a genuine medical practitioner, and that you can edit your profile and reply to patient feedback.

Its page for providers describes Patient Stories as a feature for users to say how their appointment with a doctor went, and says a Prime subscription gives a clinic or hospital access to the Book feature for online appointments. Practo also lists paid products for practices, such as practice management software and Practo Reach.

• Discovery: patients searching the platform by speciality and area can find your profile.
• Feedback: patients can share their experience, and you can respond.
• Booking: appointment requests can come through the platform, depending on the plan.
• Quick start: no design or hosting work is needed to get listed.

What does your own clinic website give you?

Your own website gives you control: your name, your design, your words, your appointment form and your own record of who contacted you. Nobody else decides what sits beside your profile or which clinic a patient sees next.

• Brand: your clinic name, logo and photos of your real premises and team, on your own domain.
• Content and patient education: pages on the conditions you treat, procedure preparation, aftercare instructions and FAQs written or reviewed by the doctor.
• Search visibility: each service page can appear in Google for searches about that treatment in your area, and the site can be the website linked from your Google Business Profile.
• Data: enquiries from your form reach your clinic directly, under a privacy notice you write.
• Portability: if you change your booking tool or platform, the website and domain stay with you.

Our guide to planning a clinic website covers page structure, doctor bylines and appointment forms in detail.

Practo profile vs own website: how do they compare?

A platform profile is strong for discovery and booking inside that platform; a website is strong for control, content and ownership. The table sets them side by side, with Google Business Profile added because most patients also meet clinics on Google Search and Maps.

Compare costs over several years rather than one. A website's cost depends on the number of pages, appointment and WhatsApp features, content writing, photography, hosting and upkeep. A platform's cost depends on whether you stay on the free profile or add a paid plan, so get each plan's terms in writing.

Who controls listing order, reviews and patient data on a platform?

On a platform, the platform does: its terms decide the order of listings, which feedback is shown and what happens to information after you leave. This is normal for any marketplace, and a good reason to keep a site of your own.

Practo's terms of use for practitioners and practices (a PDF on practo.com) state that the listing order is based on numerous factors including end-users' comments and feedback, and that Practo holds the sole right to display the listing order. They say reviews and feedback are displayed at Practo's discretion, that subscribing to one product does not automatically entitle a practice to a higher ranking, and that Practo Reach gives a sponsored, priority listing that does not promise any number of bookings. They also note that listed information may continue to appear after a practice stops subscribing.

Practo's OPD SaaS terms say Practo may, in its sole discretion, publish or not publish, retain and moderate feedback, and that the subscriber is responsible for the accuracy of information it uploads. On data, both documents describe a limited window to request a copy of your data after a subscription ends, and say that if you end a subscription voluntarily, you should make a copy of your data first.

What changes for patient data when it comes through your own website?

When a patient fills in a form on your website, your clinic decides why and how that data is used, so the responsibility under the DPDP Act, 2023 is yours. The Act calls whoever determines the purpose and means of processing a data fiduciary.

The DPDP Rules, 2025 were notified on 13 November 2025, with duties such as clear notices, security safeguards and breach reporting phased in over 18 months. For a clinic website this means:

• Ask only for what you need to book: name, phone, preferred date and doctor. Leave out detailed symptoms or reports unless they are really needed.
• Show a short privacy notice beside the form explaining the purpose, and keep any marketing consent as a separate, unticked checkbox.
• Send form submissions to a secure clinic inbox or system, not to a personal phone or a shared email account.
• Decide how long you keep enquiries that never became appointments, and delete them after that.

This is general information, not legal advice. Ask your legal adviser how the Act applies to your practice.

Where does Google Business Profile fit, and how do you link everything?

Google Business Profile is the free complement to both: it puts your clinic on Google Search and Maps, and its website field should point to your own site. Google says you can create a Business Profile for free.

• Practitioners: Google's guidelines say a public-facing practitioner can have their own profile, and where several practitioners work at one location, the organisation should have a separate profile for that location. A solo doctor at a branded clinic can share one profile named in the format Brand: Doctor name.
• Website field: the same guidelines ask for a website that represents your individual location and do not allow URLs that redirect or refer users to other landing pages.
• Appointments: Google supports appointment links, so you can point patients to your own booking page or form.
• Reviews: Google's policy prohibits incentivised reviews, so ask every patient the same way, without offers, and reply politely without discussing their treatment.

Then link everything together and keep the facts identical, so a patient who finds you anywhere reaches the same clinic. More on setup is in our Google Business Profile optimisation guide.

1. Use the same clinic name, address, phone number and timings on your website, Practo profile, Google Business Profile and any other listing.
2. Show the doctor's qualifications and registration number on the website. Regulation 1.4.1 of the 2002 ethics regulations already requires the registration number to be displayed in the clinic and on prescriptions, certificates and receipts.
3. Add your Practo and Google profile links to the website's contact page or footer, so patients can read independent feedback there instead of on your own pages.
4. Add your website address to every profile field that allows it.
5. Point the Google Business Profile website field to your own site, and use its appointment link for your own booking page.
6. Review all listings every few months, especially after a change in timings, doctors or address.

What ethics rules apply to all of them?

The same ethics rules apply on a platform, on Google and on your own site: no solicitation, no boasting of cures and no misleading claims.

The NMC's Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023 were held in abeyance in August 2023, and we found no later notification bringing them into force, so the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002 remain the reference. Regulation 6.1.1 bars soliciting patients directly or indirectly and says a physician shall not boast of cases, operations, cures or remedies or permit reports of them to be published through any mode. The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 restricts advertisements of remedies for the conditions it lists.

• Do not publish patient testimonials or before-and-after claims on your website.
• Avoid superlatives such as top doctor or painless cure, and never promise outcomes.
• Show only recognised degrees and memberships as suffixes, as regulation 1.4.2 requires.
• Keep education pages factual and reviewed by a doctor, with the reviewer named.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check with your State Medical Council or a legal adviser before you publish.

How DVM Techno Can Help

DVM Techno is a web and software company based in Sector 84, Gurgaon, and we build clinic websites for doctors across India. We plan service and education pages, a short appointment form with a privacy notice, WhatsApp and call buttons, profile links and Google Business Profile setup. See our clinic and hospital website design page, read about our wider custom website development work, or call +91-8448523313.

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