A compliant website rewrite changes far less of your site than you think. It does change more of the part that sells. On 9 September 2026 we checked 21 live clinic pages against the Australian health ad rules. They came from four professions and five cities. Of 1,360 sentences, 105 had a clear-cut compliance problem. That is 7.7%. And 86% of those 105 were one thing: a bragging word like best. Those words sit in your page titles and the big lines at the top of your pages.
Thinking about a rewrite? I rewrite clinic pages to the AHPRA and TGA rules and keep the parts that sell. You get a fixed quote within 48 hours.
What did we actually measure?
Practice owners ask the same thing before they sign anything. How much of my site are you going to change?
Nobody publishes an answer, so we went and measured one.
We took 21 live Australian clinic pages. Six were physiotherapy, five dental, four psychology and six chiropractic or podiatry. They came from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Some were homepages, and some were services or about pages. We opened all 21 on 9 September 2026, the way an ordinary web browser would. All 21 loaded.
Then we split every page into sentences. We kept only sentences of five words or more. That drops menu items, buttons, phone numbers and bits of addresses out of the count. We also removed sentences repeated on the same page. So a tagline in both the header and the footer counted once. That left 1,360 sentences.
We checked each sentence against the list of risky words our own compliance tools use every day. We imported that list rather than typing it out again. That way, this article and our working checklist always match.
We split the results into 2 piles, and the split matters. Some problems are clear-cut on a general clinic page. These are bragging words, promises of results or cures, absolute promises about appointments or rebates, and lines telling people to skip their GP. A rewrite can fix those without asking you anything. Other words always need a person to read them. The same word can be fine in one sentence and a problem in the next. Every main number below comes from the clear-cut pile only. The looser number is in the table.
How much of a clinic page does a rewrite touch?
| What we measured | Result |
|---|---|
| Live clinic pages checked | 21 |
| Pages that returned content to a plain request | 21 |
| Sentences of five words or more, deduplicated | 1,360 |
| Sentences with a clear-cut compliance problem | 105, or 7.7% |
| Sentences flagged including the judgement-call categories | 136, or 10.0% |
| Median page | 6.8% of its sentences |
| Cleanest page in the sample | 1.2% |
| Worst page in the sample | 31.2% |
| Pages with zero clear-cut problems | 0 of 21 |
| Pages above 10% | 8 of 21 |
Read the top and the bottom of that table together. Not one of the 21 pages was clean. Yet the typical page needs only about one sentence in fifteen changed.
Both facts are true at once, and most clinics believe only one of them. If you think your site is fine, you are probably wrong. If you are bracing for a full rebuild, you are probably wrong too.
Does it differ by profession?
| Profession | Pages | Sentences | Clear-cut share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physiotherapy | 6 | 306 | 12.4% |
| Dental | 5 | 328 | 10.4% |
| Psychology | 4 | 369 | 4.6% |
| Chiropractic and podiatry | 6 | 357 | 4.5% |
Physiotherapy and dental pages had about two and a half times the rate of the psychology pages. The psychology pages in our sample were longer and more clinical in tone. They spent more words explaining how they work and fewer praising the team. That was a writing choice, and your practice can make the same one.
Curious how many of your lines need a change? Book a free call and bring your homepage. We'll go through it together.
Which lines does it touch?
This part surprised us. The problems were not spread across the whole rulebook. Almost all of them fell in one group.
| Category | Hits | Share of clear-cut hits |
|---|---|---|
| Superlative and specialist claims | 90 | 86% |
| Medicare and health fund absolutes | 14 | 13% |
| Treatment, outcome or mechanism claims | 9 | 9% |
| Availability absolutes | 1 | 1% |
| Skip-the-GP framing | 1 | 1% |
The shares add up to more than 100% because one sentence can have 2 problems at once.
Narrow it down further and you get four words.
| Word | Times used | Pages using it (of 21) |
|---|---|---|
| best | 33 | 15 |
| specialist | 16 | 6 |
| expert | 11 | 6 |
| leading | 10 | 6 |
| Medicare rebate or rebates | 11 | 2 |
| elite | 5 | 1 |
| restore | 5 | 4 |
| top | 3 | 3 |
All 21 pages used at least one bragging word. Every single one did. Whatever else a compliant rewrite does, it starts here.
Why is it always the same four words?
These words fill every marketing template ever sold. And 2 separate rules make them costly for you.
The first is section 133 of the National Law. That is the part of the law behind the health ad rules. It says you must not advertise a health service in a way that:
- is false, misleading or deceptive, or is likely to mislead
- offers a gift, discount or other incentive without stating the terms and conditions
- uses testimonials, or anything made to look like testimonials, about the service or business
- makes people expect more benefit from treatment than is reasonable
- pushes people, directly or indirectly, to use health services they do not need
The maximum penalty is $60,000 for a person and $120,000 for a company.
A bragging word you cannot prove has to pass the first point and the fourth. Say you cannot show how you know you are the best. Then it is hard to argue the word is not likely to mislead.
The second rule is narrower and stricter. Section 115 protects specialist titles. You cannot call yourself a specialist in a recognised specialty unless you are registered in it. The maximum for a person is $60,000 or three years imprisonment. This law protects a title, which goes beyond a marketing rule.
We found the word specialist 16 times across six of our 21 pages. That does not mean 16 offences. Most will be loose writing rather than a claim to a protected title. But someone still has to read those 16 sentences carefully. That is exactly what a rewrite is for.
What does the rewrite look like, line by line?
Here is the real work. We found each pattern below again and again across the 21 pages. Next to it is a rewrite that tells the reader more and claims less.
We made these examples up, so they are not quotes. They follow the shape of what we found, because we do not name or quote the clinics in our sample. We are also not saying any page in the sample breaks a rule. Only a regulator can decide that, based on evidence we do not have.
| The line we keep finding | What it engages | What we write instead |
|---|---|---|
| The best physiotherapists in Melbourne | s133(a) misleading, s133(d) unreasonable expectation | Musculoskeletal physiotherapy in Melbourne, six days a week |
| Our expert team of specialists | s115 title protection, s133(a) | Four physiotherapists, each with more than ten years in practice |
| A leading dental practice, trusted by thousands | s133(a), and an unsubstantiated volume claim | A general and cosmetic dental practice, open since 2009 |
| We will restore your smile and heal your pain | s133(d) outcome claim | Treatment aims to reduce pain and improve function. Results vary between people. |
| Medicare rebates available | Australian Consumer Law, an absolute where eligibility varies | A Medicare rebate may apply if you have a current care plan from your GP. We can check before you book. |
| Same-day appointments, no waitlist | Australian Consumer Law, availability absolute | We hold same-day slots for acute injuries. Call before 10am and we will tell you what is free today. |
| See us without a referral | s133(e) encouraging unnecessary use | You do not need a referral to book. If a rebate matters to you, a GP care plan is worth asking about first. |
Look at the right-hand column. Every new line is longer and more specific than the line it replaces. That is the whole trick. The rules still let you say good things about your practice. They only stop you saying things you cannot prove.
Does a compliant rewrite make the page bland?
This is the real worry, and it deserves a straight answer.
The risk is real, and it comes from the wrong habit. Say you delete the best physiotherapists in Melbourne and put in quality physiotherapy services. You have made the page worse. You took out a claim and put nothing in its place.
Now look at where the flagged sentences sit. Bragging words are 86% of the problem. They rarely sit in the middle of a paragraph. They sit in page titles, top-of-page lines and headings. A rewrite touches 7.7% of the sentences, but a much bigger share of the sentences visitors actually read.
So the number of changes is small, and the lines are the most visible ones on the page. That is no reason to worry. It is the reason to do the job properly. Those lines were carrying your offer while saying nothing anyone could check.
Your practice has plenty to say that is true and specific. You can share how many years you have been open and how many practitioners you have. You can say what happens in a first appointment, what you do not treat and how long the wait usually is. None of that needs a bragging word, and all of it persuades better. We wrote more about this in why compliant copy gets called boring.
Why a scanner is not a rewrite
We should show you the limits of our own tool. This is where an automatic compliance check goes wrong.
The scanner flagged 27 sentences for the term CBD. CBD is on the list because cannabidiol, the cannabis extract, is a controlled substance. We read all 27 by hand.
Every single one meant the central business district. They said things like Melbourne CBD, Sydney CBD, Brisbane CBD and Perth CBD. None of them meant cannabidiol. Twenty of those sentences had no other flag at all. A practice that trusted the raw results would have rewritten 20 perfectly good lines about where its clinic is.
The other false alarms teach you just as much. One page was flagged for the word herbal. It was talking about the herbal tea in the waiting room. Three pages were flagged for holistic. That word is risky on a page near cannabis, and harmless on a psychology page describing how the psychologist works. Five mentions of AHPRA were flagged too. Several of them were in exactly the right place to name the regulator, in a line telling patients to see a registered practitioner.
This is the difference between a list and judgement. The list finds the 136 possible problem sentences fast, and that really helps. The real work is deciding that 105 of them need changing and 27 do not.
Want to run the list yourself first? Our AHPRA self-audit checklist walks you through it in order. The advertising guidelines explainer covers what each part of section 133 actually means.
What this check does not show
There are four limits, and they matter.
Twenty-one pages is a sample, so it does not cover every clinic. It covers four professions and five cities. It leaves out cosmetic, telehealth, weight and hormone clinics. Those are the highest risk areas in Australian health advertising, and they would almost certainly score worse.
We checked one page per site, rather than whole websites. A homepage is usually the most salesy page a practice has. So this may overstate the rate across a full site. It also means we saw none of the treatment pages, where promises of results tend to live.
Matching keywords cannot catch everything. It misses a testimonial that never uses the word testimonial. It misses a hinted comparison, a before and after photo, or a missing disclaimer. Each of those is a real compliance problem, and none would show up in our 105. So the true figure is higher than 7.7%, not lower.
We are not saying any page in our sample breaks a rule. Section 133 depends on whether an ad is likely to mislead, judged on evidence. We counted words on pages. That is where the question starts, and it does not settle it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much of my website does a compliant rewrite actually change?
Less than most practice owners fear. We measured 1,360 sentences across 21 live Australian clinic pages on 9 September 2026. Clear-cut compliance problems showed up in 105 of them, or 7.7%. The middle page was 6.8%. The highest was 31.2%. Every page in the sample had at least one.
Which words does a compliant rewrite remove most often?
Bragging words, by a long way. They were 90 of the 105 clear-cut flags, or 86%. Four words did most of it: best, specialist, expert and leading. The word best alone showed up on 15 of the 21 pages we checked.
Is the word 'best' actually against the rules in Australian healthcare advertising?
It is a claim you have to be able to prove. Section 133 of the National Law bans health ads that are false, misleading or deceptive. It also bans ads that make people expect more benefit from treatment than is reasonable. A bragging word you cannot prove is hard to defend under either part. The maximum penalty is $60,000 for a person and $120,000 for a company.
Can a physiotherapist or dentist call themselves a specialist?
Only if they are registered in a recognised specialty. Section 115 of the National Law makes it an offence to use a specialist title for a recognised specialty without that registration. The maximum for a person is $60,000 or three years imprisonment. Loose use of the word on a services page is one of the most common problems we find.
Will a compliant rewrite make my website bland?
It should not, and it will make your page work harder. The flagged lines are a small part of the page, but the most visible part. Bragging words gather in page titles, top-of-page lines and headings. Losing them costs you nothing if you replace them with something specific. Try your years in practice, what you treat, or what happens at a first appointment.
Can I just run a scanner over my site and fix what it flags?
A scanner finds possible problems, and a person still has to decide. In our sample it flagged 27 sentences for the term CBD. All 27 meant the central business district, as in Melbourne CBD and Sydney CBD. It also flagged a page for the word herbal, which was about herbal tea in the waiting room. Every flag still needs a human read.
How long does it take to fix a clinic website?
If a rewrite really touches around 7% of sentences, a typical clinic site is a short job, well short of a rebuild. The slow part is deciding what replaces each claim, because that needs a fact from you. An All Clear Audit covers every page of your site and usually takes 5 to 7 business days. It quotes every flagged line, names the rule it touches and suggests a rewrite.
