Everyone is now wondering about the local search rankings that according to the SEO’s are caused by a recent local algorithm update called Possum. Possum is not a word defined by the Google but rather it is introduced by the local search community that decided to give this name to the massive local algorithm update that happened September 1, 2016. This name was actually suggested by Phil Rozek according to whom it fits many business owners who think that their business listings are gone, when actually they are not. According to all reports and evidence, it is indicated that this particular update has impacted ranking only in 3-pack and local finders like Google Maps results or local results. Another update that has been made recently by Google impacts the organic results too. The main purpose of the updating process is to prevent spam and to diversify local results. According to the reports, this is the biggest update that we all have seen in the local since 2014 Pigeon. Generally, any business that falls outside the boundary or physical limit of any city face a hard time to get the ranking for any keyword. But with this new update, many businesses are seeing a massive increase in their local ranking.
Filtration based on address and affiliation
Google previously filters the local results by applying local filters that filtered out the sites which share the same domain or phone number. That generally shows the same website listed many times on the Google page and that is not a good approach. But after this update, we can see a lot of sites get filtered properly and are not showing multiple times on the page.
The physical location of the searcher gets more important
The searcher location is also now playing a very important role in showing the proper ranking results. One can see the different results from one city and totally different results from another for the same site. Some companies noticed that their many locations are now no longer ranking in 3-pack. With the commencement of this update, it has now become more important to take care of the searcher’s location than ever before. Only if the searcher’s locations are set to the correct city, then the proper results will get displayed.
Local filter is now running more independently from the organic filter
Earlier Google filters the websites using an organic filter that used to cause a negative impact on the ranking. But after this update, we can see tones of websites that rank very high for that links to the organically filtered pages. After this update, clients are seeing a massive spike in the ranking despite the fact that the URL they were using on their GMB listing was organically filtered pages.