The Therapist Recognition Index: What We Found Scanning 181 Therapist Homepages (109 Scored), Q2 2026
By Dr. Nicholas Gehle, Psy.D. · Published
Most advice about therapist websites is opinion. This page is measurement.
The Therapist Recognition Index is a quarterly benchmark of therapist website clarity, published by Strua Practice and built by Dr. Nicholas Gehle, Psy.D., a licensed clinical psychologist. Each edition scans private-practice therapist homepages with the Recognition Score, a deterministic, rule-based website assessment (no AI in the scan path), and reports what those pages do and don't tell a first-time visitor. This first edition draws on a multi-state sample from public listings in 19 cities across 19 US states, scanned in June 2026. It is a descriptive benchmark, not a representative prevalence estimate for all US therapist websites.
In June 2026, we attempted to scan 181 private-practice therapist homepages drawn from public listings in 19 cities across 19 states. Our reader could parse and score 109; 72 were not scored because of access or rendering outcomes. Unless stated otherwise, findings below use the 109 scored homepages. The 72 unscored homepages are reported as their own access finding and are not coded as failures or assumed to score the same.
The headline findings
Median Recognition Score: 46 / 100 (n=109). Half of the 109 scored homepages fell below this midpoint on the Recognition Score's rule-based scale.
The most common recommended fix was a single sentence: name who you help. For 86 of the 109 scored homepages, the scanner's highest-priority recommendation under its rules was the same: clearly state who you help and what you treat, near the top of the page. This recommendation fires when a page is missing who OR what: who was missing on 80 of the 109 scored pages, what on 68. Because the scanner reports a single top recommendation per page in a fixed priority order, this count reflects which fix ranked highest for each page — not the only issue on it.
Only 29 of the 109 scored homepages (27%) named who they help. The contrast is the story. Most scored homepages made it clear the site was a therapy practice, and most stated where the practice is located. Far fewer named who the practice is for. Therapists reliably tell visitors what they are and where they are, then stop before the sentence a prospective client is scanning for.
Only 7 of the 109 scored homepages (about 6%) passed all five 5-second checks. The five checks are the questions a first-time visitor resolves almost instantly: Is this a therapist? Is it for someone like me? Do I feel seen? Where are they? What do I do next?
Median AI-Readiness Score: 29 / 100 (n=109). On Strua's rule-based AI-Readiness rubric, the median among scored pages was 29/100; 67 lacked clear, extractable specialty, population, or location signals for this reader. AI-Readiness is Strua's internal rule-based rubric. This scan did not test whether a particular AI assistant would retrieve or recommend those sites.
72 of the 181 attempted scans could not be scored by a simple no-JavaScript reader. Of 181 attempted scans, 40 returned no usable content to our no-JavaScript reader (an empty page or bot protection; HTTP 422), while 32 were unreachable or returned errors after one retry (HTTP 502). Different search and AI crawlers may render these pages differently.
Solo and group practices had similar mean Recognition Scores. Mean Recognition Scores were 49.2 (solo, n=57) and 46.1 (group, n=52); the difference was not statistically tested.
Two of the 109 scored pages triggered the scanner's defined compliance-language flags. This is a narrow rule-based check, not a comprehensive legal or ethics audit.
How to read these numbers
The pattern across every measure is the same absence. A prospective client, often reading at a hard moment, opens a homepage and scans for one thing: is this person for someone like me? On most of the scored homepages, the page never answers it. We call that a recognition gap: a visitor may have difficulty recognizing their fit, not because they disliked what they saw, but because the page never names who it is for.
The most common recommended change in this dataset was a single sentence: name who you help, in your first line. (Per our consent rule, we report aggregates only and never publish per-site results.)
Method
- Sample: 181 private-practice therapist homepages across 19 cities in 19 states (AZ, CO, CT, FL, IA, ID, KY, NC, NE, NM, NY, OH, OR, RI, SC, TN, UT, WA, WI), drawn from public listings. This is a multi-state descriptive sample, not a representative prevalence estimate for all US therapist websites. Among scored sites: 57 solo, 52 group practices.
- Instrument: the Recognition Score scanner, live at struapractice.com. It is deterministic and rule-based, with zero AI in the scan path; every finding traces to a defined, rule-based check. It scores Recognition, AI-Readiness, and Visibility, runs the five 5-second checks, and identifies the highest-priority recommended fix. A detailed rule-set appendix — the full rubric, rule-set version, variable definitions, and the selection and exclusion procedure — is in preparation; the method and sample are documented here.
- Run: June 12, 2026, with polite pacing and one retry on transient failures. 109 of 181 attempted scans were readable and scored; 72 were not scored (40 returned no usable content to the no-JavaScript reader, HTTP 422; 32 were unreachable or errored after one retry, HTTP 502).
- Semantic classifications: categories such as "named who they help" reflect the scanner's rule-based detection ("the scanner detected"); the manual validation check for these rules will be documented in the forthcoming rule-set appendix.
- Honest caveats: Scored sites skew toward simple-HTML pages a no-JavaScript reader can parse; the 72 unscored sites are reported as their own access finding, not assumed to score the same. This is a single-page homepage scan, not a full-site audit. The Index measures what a page communicates, not the quality of anyone's clinical work.
Methods and results at a glance
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Homepages attempted | 181 |
| Scored (parsed, no error) | 109 |
| Unscored (excluded from findings) | 72 |
| — No usable content to no-JS reader (empty page, HTTP 422) | 40 |
| — Unreachable / errored after one retry (HTTP 502) | 32 |
| Median Recognition Score (n=109) | 46 / 100 |
| Named who they help (scanner-detected, n=109) | 29 (27%) |
| Top recommendation = name who you help (n=109) | 86 |
| Passed all five 5-second checks (n=109) | 7 (6%) |
| Median AI-Readiness Score (n=109) | 29 / 100 |
| Lacked clear extractable specialty/population/location signals (n=109) | 67 |
| Mean Recognition Score — solo (n=57) | 49.2 |
| Mean Recognition Score — group (n=52) | 46.1 |
| Compliance-language flags (n=109) | 2 |
Percentages are calculated on the 109 scored homepages unless the row states otherwise. The 72 unscored homepages were excluded from the scored findings, not counted as failures.
Citing the Index
You are welcome to cite these findings with attribution: "Therapist Recognition Index, Strua Practice, Q2 2026." A link to this page is appreciated. Journalists and researchers can reach Dr. Gehle for methodology questions; aggregate breakdowns are available on request, per-site data is not. Future editions will grow the sample and track whether the field's numbers move.
Where your site falls
The Index is a benchmark, and benchmarks invite one question: where would my homepage land? The same scanner that produced these numbers is free to run. It takes about 60 seconds, shows your score without asking for an email, and tells you the one highest-priority recommendation to address first, under the scanner's rules.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Therapist Recognition Index?
A quarterly benchmark of therapist website clarity published by Strua Practice. It scans a multi-state sample of private-practice therapist homepages, drawn from public listings, with the deterministic, rule-based Recognition Score and reports aggregate findings: median scores, the share of scored pages that name who they help, and the most common recommended fixes. In this first edition we attempted 181 homepages and scored 109.
What is a Recognition Score?
A free, rule-based website assessment of a therapist homepage. It measures what a first-time visitor can and can't tell about a practice in seconds: who you help, what you help with, where you are, and what to do next. No AI is used in the scoring; every finding traces to a defined rule.
Does a low score mean a therapist is bad at their job?
No. The Index measures communication, not clinical skill. Its central finding is that excellent clinicians routinely publish homepages that don't clearly state what they're excellent at.