Google’s Possum Update

How significantly did the Possum update impact local search results in Google?

From the perspective of the local SEO results, Google’s most recent update was substantial.

Some major changes resulting from this update are:

1.  City Limits:
If a company’s brick and mortar location exists outside city limits, but most of its clients are within that city, it’s quite likely that search results have not been helpful to these businesses in the past. However, with the recent Possum Update, these issues have seemingly been fixed as city limits are playing a less prominent role in SERP. It is not yet confirmed whether or not Google Maps was given an update to accommodate this or if the search algorithm was tweaked. However, we do know progress is being seen.

2. Address Affiliation Filter:
In the past, the local algorithm filtered out local profiles that shared either a phone number or domain in order to weed out duplicates. In order for businesses to avoid being filtered out by Google in a situation like this, companies should provide a business license to Google, particularly if listings are negatively affecting their website rankings. This will distinguish the listing/domain from another business with the same address.

3. Location:
The new algorithm update is using IP address locations to ensure more detailed local results to nearby users. Further, Google has dedicated larger emphasis to location, which translates to the searcher’s location settings playing an increasingly large role in displaying and ranking which adds are viewable from which location.

For further information regarding Google’s Possum update, check out the link below!

http://searchengineland.com/everything-need-know-googles-possum-algorithm-update-258900